Teen Titans: Hallow City
by Captain J.T. Wolfe
Summary: In Hallow City, six heroes are put to the test when they band together to bring to justice a corrupt businessman whose wealth and power tie into the city's criminal empire. An empire he helped to create. Welcome to Hallow City, America's concrete jungle
1. Chapter 1: Three Months

Summary: Follow the adventures of Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and Sev members of the newly organized Teen Titans H.C defending Hallow City from the perilous dangers it faces day-in-day-out. They'll have to face an assorted array of villains including, A psychotic gang of street toughs led by a group of super powered teens, a deadly bounty hunter with a mysterious link to one of the Titans, a bloodthirsty werewolf willing to turn any one in his way into a midnight snack, and a multi billion dollar genetics corporation that's not all that it seems to name a few. But their most dangerous threats come from facing and overcoming each others assorted pasts as a team. Expect tons of guest appearances by the original Titans as well as other D.C. Comics heroes and villains.

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Captain J.T. Wolfe (The Captain for short) here. After abandoning my last story due to a complete lack of original ideas (I'll admit working with a story I came up with in a half an hour wasn't that great of an idea to start with) I decided to start a completely (Or to my understanding) original story, centered around completely original places, heroes, villains and even, dare I say it, Plots (Which isn't to say I won't take old plots and give 'em a "Captain" twist you'll find out what I mean later).

Before I begin I want to get a few things straight, first off this isn't going to be exactly like the show, there will be more "Young adult" oriented situations, strong violence, killing and cursing to name a few, so if your easily offended by the word "Asshat", hate to see strong violence or be forced to read about mild blood and gut's I'd steer clear of this one. All in all I'd say it wouldn't be worse than a typical T-rated video game (T means 'Teen' for the ten of you out there who don't play video games), your average Rap "Song" or a normal episode of any 14-A rated TV Show (Sorry, us Cannuks don't have you're American rating system)

The second thing, I'm using the info from the show, not the comics, so I don't want you whining to me about things that don't add up with the comics, cause it's all made up baby, but if I made a mistake (which does happen, only rarely mind you) Please use proper grammar and polite conversing to tell me about my mistake, don't just write "Omg, that's not how it happened LOLZ" cause I'll just ignore you, which will make you feel like stomped out crap. If you do find any mistakes write something like "Dear Captain, I would like to inform you of your mistake, (insert problem here)..." and so forth.

Thirdly I'm not a big fan of fluff (Mostly because I grew up in a household where The Hills have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were 'family' movies and Freddy Krueger and Jason were my childhood heroes...but enough about my failed childhood) so don't expect a lot of cute bunnies and kittens popping up to often in the story, if your lucky I'll let there be some in later chapters but it's mostly going to be a straight forward Action/Adventure story with tons of humour, a truck load of Drama and an equal amount of romance in later chapters.

Fourthly (And hopefully lastly...is that a word, do people say "lastly", in real life?...sorry A.D.D.'s acting up again) I'm taking lessons from hit T.V. shows like Lost and...More Lost so expect tons of chapters that focus more on developing a characters...well character, if you're not a fan of Character Focused Drama's, then this might not be the story for you (I'm not saying that it'll all be a bunch of drama crap, There's a great deal of action in here, trust me. All I'm sayin is the focus on action won't be as great as the focus on drama...so if you can't live with that knowledge...well, like I said, this might not be the story for you)

Also I apologize in advance for any spelling or grammatical errors, I'm using WordPad until I can borrow Microsoft Word from my friend, so if you come across any try to ignore them and just keep reading, if I get Microsoft word I promise (with both fingers crossed) that the next chapter should be next to perfect in the word and language department, again, any misspellings or mistakes word related are all my fault but please try and read this with a grain of salt (Not literally).

Now for a quick legend of what wonders you'll find in this story.

(-)'s: Authors Notes for example (My feet have five toes)

_Italic: _Flashbacks, prologues and emphasised words. For Example (Three_ weeks ago, Robin walked outside only to realize he was in someone's crappy Legend Example) _or ("W_e_ ain't goin' no where bitch")

'..': Thoughts. For Example ('Damn it's hot out' Nameless example character thought to himself.)

"..": talking. For Example ("This is a talking symbol" Nameless example character said)

Finally, a disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans, The Justice League, The Watchtower or any use of the above names or places, (Sadly) all those rights belong to D.C. comics. So please DC save you're lawyers a trip up north and accept my apologies for using you're characters in this story.

And Now After Much Delay On My Behalf, It Is My Great Honour to Bring You The First (Of Many) Chapters In This Epic Story...

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Chapter 1: Three Months

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_Prologue_

_Three Months, that was the estimated time since they-the legendary: Teen Titans-along with The Titans East and nearly twenty Honorary Titans had defeated The Brotherhood of Evil, a group of super villains bent on world domination, as all villains of their calibre tend to be._

_During this time The Titans had lain witness to many changes , for starters the city they were deemed to be protecting was at the time a mass of tarnished buildings and rubble, but that quickly changed when the Titans and Honorary Titans helped rebuild all that was once lost. Robin was amazed at how well the Honorary Titans had bonded, it seemed like they were a large family, which was what he had wanted ever since he had first organized the Titans._

_He and Bruce had been like father and son, but like most kids and their parents they'd fought regularly, only here it was more than a fight for the car key's, or staying out late, theirs were usually fights over the loss of a criminal due to "Robins carelessness" or "Sloppiness" as Bruce often yelled._

_Robin's constant fights with Bruce, plus his longing to get away from him and just go solo were two of the many driving factors for his leave of absence from Gotham City and Batman, a move which, unlikely as it may have been, had helped kick-start the Teen Titans. He owed a lot more than he could repay to Bruce, had Bruce been a softer guy, or a more devoted father figure, he probably would never have met the Titans let alone become their leader._

_At one point he and Bruce had regularly communicated, but now with Robin being the leader of what was considered the largest superhero organization on the planet Earth-with the Justice League's Watchtower being located in space-and Bruce having joined the Justice League, the two rarely talked, something he took to heart, but like most of his problems tucked away deep inside himself._

_The second thing to change, were the teams members. After hearing of Terra's 'Condition' Cyborg took it upon himself to find a cure for her supposed 'Amnesia' as Beast Boy had put it, this was, after all for his best friend. But halfway through his search Beastboy confronted him and told him plainly to "Give up", which, at first shocked Cyborg, as well as the rest of the team, though he later went on to explain to him and the others that if Terra wanted this life he wouldn't be selfish and interfere with it. His new boast of maturity surprised everyone, even Raven, who could hardly believe he'd thought of it, let alone said it. But than again it seemed like all the Titans had matured in their own ways._

_Robin finally, to Speedy, Mas and Menos great disappointment, gathered up the courage to ask Starfire out on a date, though this came with a fairly surprising result as, at first Starfire misunderstood the term "Going out" and thought that they were to run away together which she flatly rejected, then when Raven, who seemed to be overjoyed by this new social development, explained the term to her she gladly accepted. The happy and very much in love couple would be celebrating their two month anniversary sometime in the next week. This was something that Robin talked about with great pride, as, in his own words, it wasn't every day you found that 'special someone'._

_As for Raven, The others found that she seemed to daze off every time Beastboy was present, which surprised them, as, the only other time Raven had ever dazed off was at her short-term crush over everybody's favourite water loving teen: Aqualad, and since she'd confessed she no longer had any interest in him, this confused the team even further. Robin suspected something, but decided it was best to leave it and see what happened, though, if he left it for too long the opportunity to help with the two might be lost._

_Also during this time a distressed goodbye was given to both Mas and Menos. Both teens were called back to their home country of Guatemala, due to the tragic passing of a relative and both had no choice but to stay there to help get there family back on there feet after the terrible loss, though they both made a promise to someday return to Steel City after all these things were resolved, and continue heroing, something Robin condoned and wished would happen sooner than later._

_The Third event was the cause of much planning and even more frustration, during the three months the Titans had met more than ten new heroes, all of whom were given Honorary Titan status, this toppled with the fact that there were already at least fifteen other honorary Titans-Not including the three 'Pre-teen Titans' Tommy, Teether and Melvin, who would be living with the Titans in Jump City-with no where to go, forced Robin to come up with his latest plan, he along with public contractors were building multiple Titan towers throughout the U.S.A. each one in a city with a high crime rate and no heroes. _

_Currently Robin was holding a meeting for all Legitimate and honorary Titans in the newly built Titans Meeting Building. A building in the middle of Jump City's National Park, which was easily accessible by all Titans, this being the main driving factor of its construction. _

_This building was built solely for the purpose of holding meetings with the growing number of Titans; much like The Watchtower was built for housing all the Heroes who worked with The Justice League.

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_

More than thirty heroes and heroines were gathered in the auditorium of the Titans Meeting Building, the large white building that was placed in the middle of the Jump City Park. The heroes and heroines sat on large comfortable chairs that faced opposite a large white wall with a large metal stage attached to the bottom of it and a small wooden podium located directly in the middle of the stage.

Each hero sat ripe with anticipation as to what they'd been summoned for, there were dozens of rumours flying around the room, one such rumour was that heroes might be either, promoted to the rank of Teen Titan, another was that, based on the events of the past few weeks, certain members might be 'fired' from being a Teen Titan, a fate, which for some, seemed worse than death, the final, and most popular rumour spreading around the room, thanks largely in part to a noisy Kid Flash who took the opportunity to spread it like wildfire-was that the Brotherhood of Evil had been resurrected from it's icy grave and reassumed their quest for world domination, this rumour excited many of the newer recruits who had yet to get a taste of 'real' action, as most recruits were looked at as 'weak' and were disallowed to join in on any of the Titans missions.

The auditorium the teens sat in was a large, mostly white room nearly sixty feet wide and forty feet high. The ceiling held several large, bright, florescent lights, as well as contained several dozen speakers across the walls, aside from the speakers along the walls, there were also several pictures painted on them, these included pictures of the five main Titans-Robin, Starfire, Raven, Beastboy and Cyborg-in heroic poses which were sprawled across the furthest right wall. The left wall held a mural of all the Titans and Honorary Titans in equally heroic poses. This mural held plenty of unpainted space that was to be left for the heroes who would be joining into their ranks later. The plan was to eventually have a wall sized mural of all existing members of the Titans, that future generations of Titans could admire and look up to.

As The Titans and Honorary Titans busied themselves with bickering and rambling with one another, talking about what was going on, who they thought would make good couples amongst the there ranks and most importantly when they could eat, the Titans, or rather Titans East, sat in the back of the auditorium, patiently awaiting their superiors instructions, or rather Bumblebee and Aqualad sat patiently, Speedy, on the other hand, sat twitchily and nervously in his seat.

"I swear if I have to wait one more minute" Speedy whined. One of the biggest differences between him and Robin was the fact that Speedy seemed to have A.D.D when it came to paying attention to something important like a mission briefing, whereas Robin was a straight forward, no distractions kind of guy, the kind of guy who could sit for the duration of a three hour movie without moving so much as once.

"Chill out" Aqualad said trying to calm Speedy down, the two had over time become some what good friends ever since Speedy apologized for 'The fist taco incident', an incident which, like various other incidents, had helped to strengthen their friendly relationship.

"C_hill out?_ we've been here since like six" Speedy said in an irritated tone as he tapped his fingers on his wrist watch which displayed 6:05 with a bright green neon glow, Aqualad sighed and rolled his eyes.

Suddenly the lights dimmed and a bright light shone on the stage as Robin walked to the podium. The room was suddenly filled with cheers and whistles, onstage Robin turned a slight colour of red, something that rarely happened to him.

"Ahem" he spoke into the mike, his voice boomed through the several speakers aligned on the walls and ceiling filling the room with the sound of his voice, several members of the audience covered their ears with their hands in an attempt to delude the pain that his voice over the speakers caused.

"FREEBIRD!" Someone in the audience shouted which received a few immature snickers from the crowd; onstage Robin looked less than amused at this display of immaturity, he'd really expected The Teen Titans, who, for some, no longer needed the label of Teen due to their age, to act a little more maturely.

"Now that that's over-" Robin said, he waited a second then went on "-I've called this meeting to tell you all about _our_ new plan" Robin said emphasizing the word 'our' because, as much as he'd like it to have been his own idea, he hadn't entirely came up with the idea himself. He'd gotten the inspiration for building multiple towers across the country from Starfire who said at one point during a recent trip to Gotham City, something along the lines of "Friend Robin would it not be great for there to be friends like us in every city?".

Onstage Robin shuffled his papers on his desk and cleared his throat, he was quite nervous and it showed on his face, which was enveloped in a large red blush, which made him look like he had an overly large rash across his face, though this couldn't be seen from offstage.

Using his left hand, he opened a drawer attached to the podium and pulled out a small laser pointer; he cleared his throat before speaking.

"Gentlemen if you would be so kind?" He asked as a large flat screen TV, nearly half the size of a movie theatre screen, was wheeled in by the duo of Cyborg and a large green tinted gorilla.

The two heroes pushed the TV into the middle of the stage before being stopped by Robin, who gave them a thumb's up, the signal allowing them the knowledge that it was placed perfectly. Both Cyborg and the gorilla took a break and relaxed on the TV, the gorilla stretched its arms in the air for a slight second before slowly reverting back into its original state, changing back into Beast Boy.

A few girls' screams of "He's so cute" could be heard causing Beast Boy's face change from a light green to a deep red, before he began scratching the back of his neck with his arm, attempting to hide his obvious discomfort, and embarrassment at their comment.

Behind the curtains of the stage, Raven, who had been watching the stage since the start of the show, felt a jealous blush quickly rush to her face. She raised her hood over her head in an attempt to hide it and silently walked off the stage.

Starfire, who had been busy staring at Robin, noticed her friend attempting to vacate the premises and chased after her in an attempt to find out why her friend was trying to leave when the 'show' had only just started.

"Friend Raven, where are you going?" she asked in her usually naive but caring voice, Raven tried harder to hide her blush, if there was one thing she didn't want it was any one to find out about her crush on Beastboy.

"I'm just going to...visit the garden" she lied, her face betraying what she'd just said as it held a nervous, jittery, look to it, Starfire was prepared to say something but before she could voice her statement, she saw her friend disappear in a large 'cloud' of darkness.

Starfire sighed to herself and returned her gaze to where it had been previously, on her boyfriend.

Back on stage an aggravated Robin stood getting more and more furious with each interruption that the crowd felt the need to make. He hadn't planned on the future defenders of America, and possibly the entire world, to act so immaturely and bratty. He was just about to quit his speech and leave them when he realized that by doing that he'd be sinking to their level, and that's what people like Speedy wanted him to do, no, he wouldn't do that, he wouldn't quit. Instead he put on a big smile, took a deep breath and began to continue his speech.

"Moving on" he said clearing his throat once again, this time to make sure they understood he was serious and several members looked like they understood he was, some even straightened themselves out in there chairs. "Cyborg if you could be so kind?"

Cyborg drew a white and blue remote from a small opening in his arm and aimed it at the T.V. before pressing down on the large red button located in the middle of the remote. The T.V. turned on to reveal a large, fully coloured, rotating globe. Several members of the audience engaged in a low pitched "Ooooooh's" followed by a series of equally low pitched "Aaaaaaaaah's".

As if he were expecting this Robin smiled and continued with his speech, which upset a large duration of the crowd, who'd expected him to burst a vain with their last charade.

"Now this is Earth" he said aiming the laser pointer at the globe. Pressing down on the small red button on it's flat surface, he armed the device, which shot out a bright blast of red light, that hit the tip of the globe, striking directly on a small name which read "Gotham City"

"No duh!" A member of the audience shouted, responding to the statement he'd made earlier. Like several times before, this immature act received a few equally immature snickers from the audience, all of which went without any attention from Robin, who, like he had done several times before, ignored the comment, and instead, gave Cyborg a head nod.

Cyborg pushed his finger down on a second button on the remote, this one a small blue button, an action which caused the view on the T.V. to zoom in at a rapid pace, zooming in past a series of digital clouds and onto the image of North America

"Now this is a colour coded map of the United States" Robin said, as the camera finished zooming in on the map, which displayed the entire country in a series of flashy, eye catching, colours.

There were three main coloured sections on the map, a light green area that took up a large section of the map, a light yellow area that took up a medium sized portion of it and a dark red that took up only a small fraction, there were also several blinking 'T's' located in different area's along the map, the majority of the 'T's' were placed on yellow area's, with two of the 'T's' located on a green area and only one on a red area.

Robin nodded again at Cyborg, Cyborg responded to this nod by giving him a thumb's up before pressing down on another button on the remote, this time the button brought to life a small legend, which prompted on the screen, the legend read:

Green: Small Crime Rate.  
Yellow: Medium Crime Rate.  
Red: Large Crime Rate.  
Green Teams: Team 2 and 5.  
Yellow Teams: Teams 3, 4 and 6  
Red Teams: Team 1.

"As you can see from the legend, the green symbolizes little to no crime, the yellow symbolizes a medium crime rate and red indicates a high crime rate, the teams were strategically placed arou-" Robin said before he was interrupted by Speedy shouting "What's this all about?" as loud as he could, doing his best to irritate Robin. Robin who was easily angered by this took a deep breath in, trying his hardest to keep his calm and said as calmly as he could "-well if you could keep calm Speedy I can explain".

"Now the T's symbolize Titan Towers, each one has been strategically placed on this map, each one placed according to the rate of crime, seeing as how there are some where between 25 to 30 members not including the kids" Robin said referring to Teether, Tommy and Melvin, all of whom would be staying with the Titans in Jump City,

"I've divided you up into groups based on your individual skills and powers as well as how each one of you deal with crime. The teams are currently completed, but in need of minor alterations, which means, until those alterations are made, you will all be taking a break, in which time you're free to get lunch from the cafeteria, use the weight room for training, visit the garden, spar in the sparing ring or use any of the buildings other utilities, just don't go out of ear-shot of this building, your break begins now, make sure to keep your communicators on so we can contact you when the teams are made"

As soon as Robin was done the crowd quickly got up and out of their seats, each and every member heading for the doors, leaving Robin and the other 'Primary' Titans behind.

Content with his speech, which he found to be inspiration himself, Robin made his way to the back of the stage where Starfire was waiting patiently with a large smile on her face.

"Boy-friend Robin that was a most inspirational speech" she said as she wrapped her arms around his body, giving him one of her 'famous' bone crushing hugs. Robin's bones instantly cracked and his face immediately fell from a happy smile to a pain filled frown.

"Star...can't breathe" was all he managed to say before his chest, and the rest of his body, deflated like a balloon in her arms. Starfire giggled, innocently, and dropped him to the floor, his body crashing onto the floor harder than she'd planned for it to have, which she felt guilty for.

"I am sorry friend" she said helping him up to his feet, he was still extremely woozy and his body was spiralling in a dizzy fashion.

"Yo Rob, nice speech there man!" Cyborg said giving him a 'friendly' back slap, though, much like Starfire's earlier hug, his backslap had created somewhat unexpected results. Instead of filling Robin with a sense of pride the like he'd planned for it to have, the slap knocked the wind out of him and causing him to fall, once again, to the floor.

"Whoops guess I don't know my own strength" he said as he flexed his mechanical arms before bending over, and, with Starfire's assistance, helping Robin up to his feet.

"I don't feel so well" Robin said in an uneasy tone as he was raised to his feet, the duo of Starfire and Cyborg held him for a slight second, allowing him time to regain both his stamina and his posture, before releasing him.

"You don't look so good either" Beast Boy said, emerging in front of Robin from behind the trio, his face holding its signature toothy grin.

"You never look good grass stain" Cyborg shot at him in a joking manner, though Beast Boy seemed to have taken it more offensively than intended as, at the remark, Beast Boy childishly stuck his tongue out at Cyborg and muttered "At least I'm not a big ugly machine" under his breath.

"What was that?" Cyborg asked in an irritated tone, Beast Boy noted both the angered look he held in his human eye and the tone of his voice and planned his next move accordingly.

"I said..Maybe I should go get washing...detergent" he said sheepishly, Cyborg's frown increased, he wasn't buying what Beast Boy was selling and he knew it. Beast Boy gave another of his signature grins before rushing towards the exit at a speed that could rival Kid Flash's.

"You'd better run" Cyborg shouted at him as he started chasing after him, though, as soon as he was sure Beast Boy was far enough away that he wouldn't bother the three of them, he stopped chasing after him and turned around, heading back to the duo of friends he'd left behind.

"On the topic of the little green elf...has any one seen Raven?" Cyborg asked, obviously implying the 'relationship' between the two that, for reasons unknown to him or anyone else for the matter, everyone but the two could see.

Robin, too out of breath to speak, just shook his head from side to side, a sign meaning he had no idea where the young empath had traveled too.

"Friend Raven has retired to the garden of meditation" Starfire said recalling her earlier encounter with Raven, though neglecting to mention both the reason and state of mind in which she'd left, though this was due to her naive ness and not in any way a mean spirited act.

Robin smiled, he knew she'd be the first to use the Meditation Garden; he had made it with her in mind. He knew that, in the event that they should ever have to have call an emergency at the Meeting Place it would be best if there was someplace that Raven could meditate, collect her thoughts and regain her own piece of peace and quiet, and since the entire building would most likely be hectic with fright, he knew that the meditation garden was more than a good idea to have installed.

"Well friend shall we not get lunch?" Starfire asked as she grabbed a now no longer winded Robin by the arm and led him down the stairs, she was ready to head out the exit door towards the cafeteria when Robin gently shook off her arm.

"Sorry Star, I really have to finish these teams...but you two go ahead I'll catch up later" Robin said, breaking away from his friends and heading towards a large silver door marked "Robins Office", which, as the name obviously stated, was his own private office in the building, designed exactly to his liking.

"Then I shall see you later?" Starfire asked in a sorrow filled tone, she hated when Robin got into what the others called "Robin Mood's" where he'd ignore anything non-crime, or in this case, hero related and focus solely on that subject. Lately he'd been going into these moods less and less, which was a good sign, as she and the others believed, but the moods still did show up from time to time and each time felt like torture to poor Starfire.

"Sure Star..later I'm free" Robin said happily, for once he had little to worry about and with a low crime rate in Jump City he usually had the day off, hopefully today would be one of the days with no crime, a day where he could just kick back and relax, he liked those days, mostly because he got to spend them with Starfire, but also because they were a sure fire sign that he was winning the war on crime.

"Excellent shall we perhaps see a movie?" Starfire asked with her usual kind and gentle voice, she prayed internally that he'd answer with a "yes", though this was highly unlikely, but, still, if he could she would be more than overjoyed.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world Star" Robin said giving her one of his heart melting smiles, the same kind that he'd given to her time after time in the past, and, she had to say, it still held it's effects, as she found herself become extremely light on her feet.

"All right cut the mushy stuff you two, your gonna make me hurl" Cyborg said interrupting a generally romantic moment between the two, as he, and much more often, Beast Boy tended to do quiet often, more times than was deemed 'accidental'.

Cyborg gently grabbed Starfire by the arm and began dragging her down the hall, heading towards the underground cafeteria.

"See ya later Rob" he called back at Robin as he continued down the hall.

Robin sighed before entering his office, he had a long day ahead of him but at least he had something to look forward to at the end of it.

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That's Chapter 1 for ya. Now it's time for The Captains crazy trivia.

Now, for the first of many Trivia

First things first, there are Seven teams in total accounting to about a total of 36 heroes (five on each team plus one for Team six, A.K.A. Team Hallow City or my team) but I assume Robin's not counting his team as a team in the factor, so I'm presenting it as teams 1-6 only, Team one refers to Bumblebee's team which is why hers is the only one in a red area.

This version of the Chapter underwent three (count 'em THREE) different revisions before i thought it was good enough (What can I say, I'm a harsh critic). The first time I had a new character taking the place of Speedy as comic relief, the second was pretty much the same but with the O.C. having a back-story partly introduced in this chapter, and the third with the teams already completed and present in this chapter.

And finally before all of you get mad at me for getting rid of Mas and Menos I'd like to explain why I did the dirty deed. First off I don't speak Spanish and translating it is a hard task (Not that that's the real problem) and Secondly it's got a lot to do with one of my characters back stories (You'll meet her next chapter), so I didn't do it because I'm extremely lazy...that's just half of the reason.

Next Chapter: As Robin prepares to finish creating the last of the teams he questions wheter the members of the final team are as good as he makes them out to be. Meanwhile six heroes go about their lives without the knowledge, that, at the end of the day, they'll be known as The Titans H.C.


	2. Chapter2: Meet The Heroes Of Hallow City

Summary: Follow the adventures of Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and Sev members of the newly organized Teen Titans H.C defending Hallow City from the perilous dangers it faces day-in-day-out. They'll have to face an assorted array of villains including, A psychotic gang lead by a team of super powered teens, a deadly bounty hunter with a mysterious link to one of the Titans, a bloodthirsty werewolf willing to turn any one in his way into a midnight snack, and a multi billion dollar genetics corporation that's not all that it seems to name a few. But their most dangerous threats come from facing and overcoming each others assorted pasts as a team. Expect tons of guest appearances by the original Titans as well as other D.C. Comics heroes and villains.

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Alright Ladies and Germs (Move over Leno there's a new comedian in town) the Captains back with a hot off the presses 7000+ word goliath of a chapter (took me a while to write...er type).Before I begin I want to get a few things off my chest (Aside from this leech I've had on me since three summers ago) 

The First: I really don't mean to sound like an ass, but it'd be really great if you could leave a review I know it's hard to come up with something to write in such a small space (Usually I find myself typing 30-40 thousand words) but something as simple as "Kicking ass" or "Best story on the site please have my children (this applies only to hot women under 30)" isn't to much to write and it only takes 3 to 20 seconds of your very busy lives (and I'm sure your lives are very hectic, so hectic that you could take the time to read the story but not actually write a review), plus it helps inspire me to write more and in a shorter time.

Secondly: Before I'm crushed with flames due to plot hole related issues, I'd like to say I haven't seen the straight-to-DVD movie, nor do I follow the plot of it because in this story it never happened, instead I'm using the info the show (Which I don't have to pay Nine dollars and ninety five cents to see) has given me so I'm sure there will be plenty stuff that doesn't add up with the movie in this chapter but please look past that and read it for enjoyment not so that you can point out every mistake I made (Cause I'm sure there are plenty)

Finally, A disclaimer.  
Disclaimer: I don't own The Teen Titans (If I did...well this is what would happen I guess) or any use of D.C. owned characters or places. What I do own (Or assume, since their of my creation) are the characters, Red, Slack, Lightlad, Tag, Sev, Blizkid and all plots and stories relating to them.

And Now It Is My Great Honour To Bring You Chapter 2.

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Chapter 2 Meet the Heroes Of Hallow City

* * *

Robin sat in front of the large, silver, bulky computer positioned in the middle of his small office. The only noise in the room, a low pitched hum, came from the computer and the occasional mouse click or grunt of annoyance at the odd mistake he made. 

Several small traces of bright light beamed down from the small cracks in the blinds, giving the room just enough light to see in a relaxing way and Robin was plenty relaxed, he'd gotten enough sleep the past week to make up for the entire year of unrest and hardships he'd faced when he and the others had taken on the Brotherhood, and, he had to admit, as much fun as being a hero was, taking a break was almost twice as much.

Robin had just spent the last half an hour coming up with what he assumed to be the perfect teams, tweaking them to the point of perfection was a hard and time consuming task but he took it apon himself, he knew from experience that a team that doesn't get along makes a bad team-his time with Bruce had tought him that-and he couldn't allow that to happen to any of the members.

He was now on the last of the teams, "The last" he said those words to himself with great ease and relief, all he had to do now was assign the members to the team, call all the heroes back to the meeting room, call them up by their teams, congratulate them and give them there plane tickets to there destinations, to some that might seem like a lot, but to him it felt like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulder, and if his plan went right, there might be a large weight lifted off the back of America and possibly even the world.

Moving his curser over a minimized program with the title of "Team 6" he pressed down on the mouse bringing the minimized program up, it had "Team 6, Location: Hallow City, Michigan" in plain text. There was a large space underneath the title with six empty boxes underneath it, and beside each space was a name, six in total. In the corner was a small box which read "Assign to position" and two buttons one labelled "Yes" and the other "No".

Robin pulled up another screen, this one was labelled "Classified", he typed his password on a small key board and the screen changed from "Classified" to "Access granted" then six screens were pulled up, each one looked like a small I.D. card, Robin stared at the first screen, going over it one last time.

_Name: Slack  
Age: 18  
Powers: Synthetic Combat Suit-with hidden gadgets and weapons-fully equipped utility belt, 5th degree black belt level karate skill.  
Pros: Slack is skilled in three forms of martial arts including Judo, karate and ti kwon do, she's strong willed, strategic and would make a perfect leader.  
Cons: Shy._

Down the hall from the auditorium was a large weight room. The room was almost double the size of the workout station in the Titan Tower and painted with the same colours of blue and white as the one back at the tower.

Inside the weight room several dozen heroes trained on the large assortment of weights the room presented them with, a teenage girl, roughly the same age as the other heroes was busily sparring with a large black punching bag.

The girl had long jet-black hair with bright crimson highlights that made a series of patterns down her hair, some might say that the mix of red and black hair gave her a 'tough' or 'cool' look, though one look at her soft, gentle, almost childlike face would quickly diminish those thoughts.

Her eyes were sharp and, at the same time, calm looking, her pupils were a shade of dark blue that hardly any one else in the building's eyes held. Some would go so far as to say her eyes were the same colour of the ocean on a dark night.

Like all the other female heroes in the building, she was very attractive woman, or, as Speedy would say, she was "One hot babe", and attracted much, in her case, unwanted attention. She was shy of the general opposite gender for reasons only she knew, the only males she'd ever felt comfort around were her father and brother, both of whom had been taken from her life too soon.

The girl: Slack, dressed in the typical superhero garb, a 'spandex' styled costume that covered her general body area. The costume was a deep dark blue and light black in the general area, with a pair of light black boots covering her feet.

Her costume left her hands free, both of which were covered by a pair of loose fitting, light black gloves. The final peice of her costume was a dark black utility belt with dozens of metalic pouches which held an equal number of gadgets and weapons.

She was using a style of martial arts that none of the few heroes observing her had ever seen, she moved with feline like precision and struck with rhino like strength. Kicks and punches were all delivered feircly and struck with boulder smashing strength, had the punching bag not been designed specifically to deal with inhuman amounts of pressure it would have been nothing more than an empty leather pouch due to the ferocity of her attacks.

Placing her palms on the floor, Slack ran at the bag with speed that could rival a cheetah's. Pushing her body off the ground using the muscles in the back of her legs, she flew through the air with the grace of an eagle before spiralling in the air and kicking her foot out, giving the bag a ferocious roundhouse kick to it's side. Her foot struck the bag with enough force to send the bag off the metal chain support and crashing down onto the floor with a loud "Thud", which, unknowingly to Slack, shocked everyone in the room who, in the same moment as they'd been shocked, all turned to face Slack, who was standing with her hands on her knee's breathing in and out in exhaust.

Taking a deep breath she tilted her head upwards, only to be met face to many faces, all of which stared at her, their gaze penetrating through the thick layer of 'sheilding' she'd built up over the years, the 'sheild' which protected her from the nerve racking glances of the people surrounding her.

She glanced over her shoulder at the large dent in the floor that the broken punching bag had made, swallowing lightly she then moved her gaze back to the many faces of heroes, all of whom still held their penetrating looks. Suddenly Slack felt extremely weak compared to the wall of eyes that was staring at her, she could feel a blush burning up into her cheeks, she tried to voice an apology, only to find that nothing came out of her mouth, not even an 'eep', absolutley nothing.

The eye's continued to stare at her, she tried running but found herself petrified, she couldn't move, she was so nervous. Finally she took a deep breath in, quickly and without looking back rushed out of the room through the small exit that led to the buildings washroom's.

As she rushed through the door, she quickly spun around the corner and hid there while she caught her breath and sighed to herself, she hated being so nervous under pressure, it was a terrible curse, she'd used dozens of precautions to avoid it, ranging from meeting everyone in a room so they weren't strangers to not going somewhere she hadn't been before alone, but all of them had failed and in the end she was left with a nervous habit, she sighed once again, this time in spite of herself, she hated what she'd become, but, like almost all of the problems she'd faced in the past, she realized that the only way to better herself was to find a solution to this problem, she sighed, ocne again, before lifting her head up and entering the washroom.

_Name: Lightlad  
Age: 17  
Powers: Suit capable of manipulating light into various forms.  
Pros: Powerful manipulation of light into shields, weapons, jetpack and other devices.  
Cons: Son of Dr.Light, Loyalties lie in question._

In the basement of the Titan Meeting Building was a large cafeteria painted a light shade of white and blue, the mixture created a calming colour that helped keep the titans from waring with one another, using the near endless amount of food they had at their disposal.

The cafeteria held a large serving area, where half a dozen highly paid cooks were busily preparing meal after meal for the ever hungry vigilant of teens. Each cook cursed and blessed their luck, it was one thing that the government was paying them close to forty dollars an hour for feeding these teens, that they didn't mind, not at all. But it was another thing that the teens all had different diets, eating habits and levels of hunger. So far they'd served over two tons of food, enough to feed a small third world country, and that was just to half the teens in the building.

Standing at the head of the line, eager to get his "Tasty" Tofu was Beast Boy, who held two silver trays in his hands, one for him, and the other was for a very special person, though he wouldn't say who to any of the heroes who'd asked him, only saying 'It's a secret'.

Beast Boy was followed by an also eager, though not to get tofu, Kid Flash who had a grinning Jinx standing to his side.

It went without saying that the two of them had bonded during their time together against the Brotherhood of Evil, though, as it was obviously displayed, they had bonded in a 'more than friends' way, as they were well into there third month as a couple and were pretty much un seperatable by that time.

Meanwhile those who had already gotten their food from the cooks now sat at the large, round, tables that were spewn across the room.

At one such table sat both Herald and Jericho who were engaged in a conversation about who they hoped to be teamed up with, though Jericho was only using sign language, Herald could completely understand him.

Herald was a keen observer and fast learner, using this knowledge to his advantage Jericho had been able to teach him a basic level of sign language in less than a weeks time, which compared to the month and a half it took to teach Beast Boy, seemed almost like a miracle.

"Hey you guy's don't mind if I sit here do you?" a voice called out from behind the duo. Both teens spun around, to come face-to-face with a teen no more than their age, who stood an inch or so taller than Herald.

The teen was fairly good looking, better looking than a large variety of the heroes in the building, he had deep brown eyes and black, short, clean cut hair.

He had an average build to his body, though it was apparant he wasn't the strongest hero in the building, though who was, was a highly debatable topic, he was surely not the weakest one, several heroes, including Beast Boy, Hot Spot and Kid Flash would range behind him on terms of physical strenght.

The teen was dressed in a costume very similar to one Dr Light's earlier costumes, though his was heavily toned down and more slick looking than anything Dr.Light had ever worn. Instead of the light bulb studded belt that Dr.Light wore, the teen had a plain white coloured belt with several black square shaped pouches in place of the light bulbs, and where the light bulb insignia on Dr.Light's chest had been, there was a white circle with two 'L's' that faced opposite each other.

Jericho got up and pulled out a chair for the teen, the teen lowered his tray onto the table and sat down.

"Thanks...I'm Lightlad by the way" he greeted extending his hand to Herald, unsure of wheter or not he would shake back. He'd been around the room and hardly any heroes would do so much as talk to him, but, he still had hope.

"I'm Herald and this is Jericho" Herald said, shaking Lightlad's hand with his right hand and pointing to Jericho with his left, as Herald finished shaking Lightlad's hand, Jericho took the opportunity to get aquanted with Lightlad as he too shook his hand.

"He doesn't talk much does he?" Lightlad said with a nervous smile as he took a seat beside Herald, both Herald and Jericho returned his smile relieving him of the queasy feeling he had in his stomach.

"So...you guy's new around here?" Lightlad asked trying to spark conversation, both Herald and Lightlad shook there heads, Lightlad frowned at his failed attempt to start a conversation, picking up on this Herald spoke up.

"What about you?" Herald asked despite the fact that he already knew the answer to his question, but instead asking in order to make Lightlad feel more comfortable, as, he could tell, he was already plenty nervous.

"Yeah...I'm new around here, most people don't trust me cause of the..well you know" Lightlad said, shame playing off his tone, both Jericho and Herald shook their heads as Jericho made several sign language gestures which received a questioning eye from Lightlad.

"He says he doesn't know what you mean" Herald said, defining his freinds previous actions, Lightlad nodded his head in understandment.

"You mean you don't know?" he asked in a somewhat upbeat tone. Both teens shook their heads sideways, Lightlad looked slightly confused and slumped his shoulders, he hated this part of the conversation, he hated the part where he had to confess one of the many things about his hero heritage he found extremely shameful.

"I'm _Lightl_ad, you know, the son of Dr._Light_ as in the lamest supervillian of all time" Lightlad said emphasizing the word Light both times, for him this wasn't a easy thing to admit, not many people would be proud to have a supervillian as there father, especially when he was considered the laughing stalk of the hero community. It was bad enough that his father was a villian, which automatically cast a shadow over him, creating a negative outlook from the other heroes, but his father was a villian who was so easily defeated that he wasn't even considered a challange which created a wave of distress on himself, as others figured him to be a unsuccesful addition to the Titans.

Jericho smiled and, using his hands once again, formed a sentace using sign language, making several hand shapes that Lightlad didn't understand, but Herald was way ahead of him and was ready to translate.

"What's he saying?" Lightlad asked curiosity biting at him like a rabid dog.Herald smiled and began translating his friend's cryptic message.

"He says 'It doesn't matter who your parents are, all that matters is who you are". Herald said, translating his freinds statement word-for-word.

Lightlad smiled, it wasn't every day he met a group, if you could call it a group, more like a twosome of freinds, who were so easy to get along with. Most heroes he'd met in the three weeks since he'd been given hero status were far less than friendly towards him, even Robin had his doubts about him, and, as one would expect, this series of 'looking down's' held it's fare share of negative effects on him, but these two were nicer than most Titans and he appreciated that.

"You know. I like hanging out with you guys" Lightlad said with a smile, Herald and Jericho smiled to and all three began eating there meal in peace.

_Name: Tag  
Age: 17  
Powers: Teleportation,  
Pros: Tag's teleportation skills are useful to any team, she can easily get into secluded places that other heroes can't, and her optimistic attitude is a good thing for any team's tense situations.  
Cons: No Hand To Hand combat skills._

In the middle of the meeting building sat a small secluded area of shrubbery, this area was none other than the meditation garden. The garden was a good thirty feet wide and held thousands of knee high flowers, large colourful and exotic trees, small, natural, marshes-inhabbited by various animals-and, of course, soft fluffy grass.

In a deeper, grassier part of the garden stood a teenaged girl , the same age as the general population of teens in the building. She had bright, brown, mocha coloured skin, snowish white hair that streched all the way down to her chest and bright green eyes, so bright that they could rival Starfire's.

The girl was dressed in a white costume which covered most of her body, the first peice of her costume was a shirt that covered her chest and partially covered her stomach, leaving an 'x' like seperation across it. Her legs were covered by a pair of white pants which left her ankles exposed, though those were sheilded by the pair of solid white boots she wore on her feet.

As the girl walked through the garden, taking the neccesary time to admire the beautiful scenery that surrounded her, she stopped, suddenly, in front of a small squirrel, whose gaze was aimed directly at her.

"Hello there" she greeted, her voice carrying a soft and almost unnoticeable Spanish accent with it, the accent only apllying to certain words in her vocabulary.

The squirrel looked at her curiously before tilting it's head sideways, it gave a quiet "chirp" like sound and quickly scurried towards the closest tree, a tall, brown, oak tree.

The girl followed after the squirrel in a walking pace, making sure not to crush any of flowers that were between her and the tree with her boots, as she came closer to the squirrel it once again tilted it's head and scurried up the tree, circling it's length as twice as it hurried towards the top of the tree, the girl smiled, blinked her eyes shut and disappeared in a puff of white smoke.

As she opened her eyes, she re-appeared before the squirrel on the top of the tree, the squirrel looked shocked and the girl smiled

"Tricked you didn't I?" she asked it as she pat it on it's head with her index finger, the squirrel gave her a scared look before scurrying off again.

"Hey Raven you in here?" she heard the voice of the green changeling known as Beast Boy call out, she smiled and recalled when she along with a few of her friends had called him cute during the meeting, he was in reality kind of cute, but she knew he had a thing with the dark sorceress, or Raven, and decided to stray from that path.

He walked past the tree she was sitting on, though due to the fact that she was twenty feet above him he didn't see her, she glanced at him and saw that he was carrying two large serving tray's, one with a plate full of tofu, soda and cutlery and the other tea and salad, Tag smiled knowing full well who the second tray was for.

Looking at a spot directly in front of him she blinked her eyes and with a cartooney 'Poof' sound and a cloud of white smoke she appeared in front of him, he jumped back in shock but to both his and her surprise didn't drop either of the trays and gave a small "Eek", Tag smiled at him as he started to calm down.

"Oh..hey it's just you...Tag right?" he asked as he carefully balanced the tray's trying not to spill anything.

"That is my name" she said cheerfully.

"You haven't seen Raven have you?" he asked casually all the while trying desperately to balance the two large trays he was carrying.

"Oh I think she was over there" Tag said pointing towards a smaller, darker part of the garden, a place where she'd seen Raven travel twenty minutes prior, she doubted if she was still there but shrugged it off, if she knew Raven like she thought she did, she was still there.

"Thanks Tag" Beastboy said running off in the direction, Tag smiled to herself as she watched Beastboy balancing his tray's as he carefully navigated his self through the garden, almost slipping on stepping stones several times.

Tag turned on her heel, now facing the door to the inside she decided to wash up before they called the meeting, she saw no point in going on stage with various twigs and leaves poking out from every which place.

_Name: Sev  
Age: 17  
Powers: Technological genius, Robotic Arm with concealed, weapons and gadgets.  
Pros: Able to build and fix just about any thing, good with computers, skills include, safe cracking, hacking and computer splicing.  
Cons: Only physically strong with robotic arm,_

In the Tech room-A room where all heroes possessing non-organic superpowers could come and use the many technological wonders that helped them with there technological powers, there were dozens if not hundreds of computers, some as small as a can of soda others as big as a king sized bed, the room was dimly light and only the glow the computers gave off kept the room from being pitch black,-A young teenaged boy sat in a large leather arm chair.

The teen was of Asian descent, Japanese to be exact though he hardly looked foreign to the country and spoke perfect English, almost better than the common man which he credited to the ten years of English classes he'd taken before hand.

He had short spiky black hair and brown eyes and was good looking for someone his age, while not movie star good looking he was still good looking enough to have several of the female heroes in the tower blush when he walked by.

His 'costume' consisted of a plain white T-shirt with a blue fish on the front covered by a dark black vest with large pockets lining the front, baggy blue jeans with a silver utility belt attached to them and a black beanie cap with a metal skull sewn onto it's rim covering his head.

On his feet he wore a pair of casual runners with a black and white chequered pattern on them, nothing to fancy for him but in his own words "I wouldn't be caught dead in spandex" though this statement sure didn't seem to apply to the other ninety eight percent of the heroes in the building, who wore exactly that.

Like his fellow Titan Cyborg he had a robotic arm in place of his organic right arm, it was just as flexible as his normal right arm had been before he lost it, it was capable of lifting more than three tons and capable of holding more than six dozen weapons and gadgets inside of it.

He sat in his chair with robotic arm relaxed on his lap, there was a small panel the size of a lottery ticket open on his arm, leaving several dozen wires of all colours to jet out from it, exposing them to the dim light of the room.

The room was too dark for him to see perfectly in, and since perfection was key to the repairs he was making he needed extra light, this extra light came in the form of a small, silver flashlight, which he held inbetween his teeth as he did his repairs on his arm.

He clenched his teeth around the flashlight as he moved his fingers over a small yellow wire, he twisted it tightly, this had to be the right wire. Much to his suprise, instead of the result he planned on getting, the wire gave him a strong shock on the hand, he jerked his hand back and gave a quick and loud "Fck", the flashlight clenched in his teeth stopping him from fully pronouncing the curse word.

He shook his head and tried again, anger wasn't getting him anywhere, he twisted the wire to the left instead of the right, this time he got the proper result, he smiled, spit out the flashlight and stored it back in its proper place inside a small slot on his arm.

He lay back in his chair, the glow of success surrounded his body making him look like Rudolf the red nosed reindeer, he smiled to himself, he could now rest knowing full well that his arm, the peice of his body which was the only reason he was dubbed a 'hero', the technological wonder that was his mettalic was now a sixty two thousand song storing, fully functional, Mp3 player.

_Name: Blizkid  
Age 14  
Powers: Ice creation and manipulation, impervious to being frozen or getting any form of disease from the cold.  
Pros: Powerful ice powers are essential to teams in winter time, can-do attitude is a help to any team.  
Cons: Not in full control of powers, nervous and jittery._

Two blocks from the Titans Meeting Building, sat Jump City National Park, the same park that time and time again the Titans had fought various villains, it was also the same place that Robin had taken Starfire on the couples first official date, but none of these past events were the focus of attention at the moment.

In the middle of the park, a young teenaged boy, roughly fourteen years of age, sat on a brown bench, the large oak tree behind him gave him the perfect amount of shade for him to relax in.

The teen had short light blue hair in a messy 'vlean cut' styled hair cut, deep blue eyes and pale blue, almost albino white skin, though, all of these physical traits were unnatural.

Before what he called "The accident" that had caused these changes he had light brown hair, dark blue eyes and tanned skin, but the day's of his old self were long gone, replaced by his new blue, in both senses of the word, self.

His costume consisted of a mask very similar to Kid Flash's style of open eyes as apposed to Robins soulless eyeless mask, only instead of scarlet his was deep 'ocean' blue, a colour that went along with his bodily colour. His 'body' costume, like the other heroes, was made of a 'spandex' styled costume, though unlike other heroes, his was a light blue and black and held three white semi circles on his chest area forming a blizzard like pattern.

The teen had the power to create and manipulate ice by using the water molecules in the air, he didn't understand exactly how it worked, he had gotten them by accident after all, but he was glad he had them. A month prior to this day he'd saved a widow and her daughter from a burning fire that clamed their house, the woman couldn't stop thanking him after that, he still received dozens of letters and boxes of cookies from the woman almost every day.

He smiled to himself as he watched a family of four playing a game of soccer in the large grass field directly in front of him, it was the kind of day that activities like soccer were more than perfect choices, the air was fresh and smelt of pollen, the birds chirped and the sun shone with just the right amount of light.

He signed to himself as he rested his head in his hands, taking in a breath of fresh air he thought about what he should have been doing instead of sitting around, he should really have been back at the Meeting Building with the other heroes, but he found it to much for him, he could hardly believe he was a hero at all, it seemed like just yesterday he was at school laughing with his friends, living with his Dad and Step-mom and sharing a bunk bed with his older Step-brother.

But those day's were long gone now, his friends no longer talked to him, shunning him was the right word, his family was no longer together and his step-brother was two countries away from him, sighing again he tilted his head up and stared at the large oak that granted him shade.

He watched as a nest of young blue jays wailed for their mother, suddenly he felt a queasy feeling creeping up his stomach, he knew this feeling to be jealousy, as stupid as it seemed, he was jealous of the birds, not the birds so much as the family bond that they shared.

In the past he may have felt jealous when his brother got a new game that he didn't, or a kid at school brought cookies from home and didn't share them with him, but now he felt jealous every time he stared at someone who didn't have to hide their looks behind a costume, who didn't have blue skin, he felt jealous at everyone who was normal.

He looked away from the birds and was prepared to return his glance to the family, but something was blocking his view. Blizkid looked up to see a large teen standing in his way. The teen was a tall teen older than him, with tanned white skin and blue eyes, he was wearing a yellow hoodie, blue jeans and a red cap on his head and was staring at Blizkid in disgust, once again he felt the queasy feeling rising up his stomach, though this time it wasn't jealousy but fear.

"Hey freak this is my spot in the park" the punk said threateningly, Blizkid looked at him terrified, he could feel his heart starting to speed up, pumping blood and adrenaline through his system at a faster than normal rate, he stared at the punk, he was a good foot half a foot taller than him and much more muscular, definitely someone he couldn't handle mano-a-mano without using his powers and he still hadn't mastered them yet, he couldn't risk killing the teen with an icicle to the throat over something as stupid as a park bench, instead he decided his best course of action was playing along.

"I was here first" he defended himself though he wasn't sure why, he was sure he'd eventually be either, knocked out by the punk or just give him the bench, all the while his mouth was quivering, the punk smiled knowing he was scaring Blizkid who felt like a mouse cornered by a rabid cat, there was no escaping even if the punk beat him.

"Ya well now your blue ass is outta here" he threatened, clenching his hand into a fist, Blizkid's heart rate increased drastically, he felt like it would leap out of his chest at any second.

Blizkid sighed to himself there was no point in fighting him it was just a stupid bench after all, "Alright..alright take your stupid chair" he said getting up, The punk smiled but only for a second.

"Oh no it's too late for that" the punk said raising his fist causing Blizkid to flinch, he hated fights, he couldn't stand to watch someone get the senses knocked out of them, it sounded stupid that he'd become a hero fighting crime but he tried as hard as he could to use a peaceful regime as apposed to certain heroes beat the enemy until he can't move regime.

"Look I don't want any trouble...just take your seat and-", before he had time to finish he felt the punk's fist slamming into his stomach with enough force to knock the wind out of him and send him down on one knee.

"That's what you get ya' little freak" the teen said raising his foot above Blizkid's head, ready to stomp the daylights out of him.

Blizkid closed his eyes and awaited the blow, the punk raised his leg, ready to stomp directly on Blizkid's back, he gazed at where Blizkid lay but something was blocking his line of sight, he looked up and stared terrified at what he was looking at.

_Name: Red  
Age: 18  
Powers: Superhuman strength and endurance, Animal level senses, self healing, strong resistance to fire, Nocturnal Vision.  
Pros: Red's strength and endurance make him a valuable asset to any team.  
Cons: Violent tendencies when dealing with villains, Sarcastic, anti social and overly aggressive attitude make him hard to put up with._

Standing in front of the punk was a teen his own age if not older, he stood several inches taller than the punk who stood roughly five foot ten, making the standee somewhere around six foot two.

The teen had scruffy looking darkish brown hair that stretched all the way down to his chin, with deep brown eyes that, had anyone taken the time to stare at directly, would note the intense level of sympathy within them.

His body had a muscular build to it, much more so than most of the other heroes in the building, while not as strong as Wildebeest or Cyborg, he was still much stronger than the average hero more than twice as strong to be exact.

As if being a six foot two muscular teen with a noticeable attitude problem as well as a clear death wish wasn't enough, he had two very different features about him.

The first difference being his dark red skin the colour of fresh blood, that covered his entire body, giving him a fear inducing demonic appearance, his skin also had several dozen, thick ash black lines that formed a series of spiralling patterns down his arms, two semi circles from the back of his neck to his chin, a large circular pattern on his back and a side way's 'H' like design on his chest though most of which were hidden behind his long hair and costume.

The second difference was a black furry cat like tail that started from where his spine ended and stretched it's way down to his feet, the end of it was curled upwards making him look like he had a furry candy cane coming from his backside.

Both of his differences added to his already large freighting image, most of the people he'd helped save since he'd been given a communicator thought he was a monster and refused his help, he'd once saved a eight year old from becoming a blood stain on the front of a speeding train, the kid apon seeing his hero to be a tall red skinned monster, kicked him hard in the shin and ran to the nearest police officer, narrowly avoiding having Red removed his head from the rest of his body.

His costume wasn't a regular skin tight spandex full body suit like most of the other heroes dressed in, instead he wore a costume more suitable for someone his size, a black muscle shirt with a large belt wrapped around his body, the belt had several metal sheathes on it, all of which were noticeably empty, his shirt was covered by a light yellow hooded coat, the coat had several deep pockets on it as well as a large red "R" logo printed on the back with another one on the left side of his chest.

He also dressed in a pair of light black pants with several more metal sheathes wrapped around the knee and calf area of his leg, there was also a medium sized hole in the back of his pants that his tale hung comfortably out of.

The punk looked terrified at Red, suddenly, as if it were an impulse the punk clenched his hand into a fist and threw a punch aimed for Red's head but Red was quicker than he anticipated and caught his fist with his left hand, the punk tried breaking free but Red's grip was too strong, again the punk attacked, this time he kicked his foot into Red's chest, breaking Red's hold on the punk and knocking him back.

"Now your gonna get it you red freak" the punk threatened as he cracked his knuckles, Red smirked, this only enraged the punk whose face was no longer white but red with anger.

The punk charged at Red, Red arched his legs back and waited for the punk to be right where he wanted him, as soon as the punk was in range he kicked off the ground and leapt over the punks head, halfway between the punk and the ground he kicked his left foot backwards, kicking the punk in the back of the head and slamming his body on the grass leaving a large body shaped impression in the dirt.

Red landed on both feet with feline like perfection, he stood up in time to see the punk get up off the ground, one side of his face covered in grass and dirt, his eye's were burning with anger and his face twisted into a sickening state of anger, he looked mad enough to not just beat Red but kill him if he had the chance.

The punk ran at Red who stood waiting for him, as the punk got closer Red began to draw his right leg behind his body, finally the punk was within striking range, quickly Red kicked his right foot forward, striking the punk in the stomach and knocking the wind out of him but Red wasn't done, he pulled his left leg back and just as quickly kicked the punk in the head, the punk fell backwards and slammed onto the bench, cracking the wooden frame like a twig.

The punk gave a pain filled moan before he lay his head on his shoulder in defeat, Red smirked, straightened himself out and patted himself off before turning around to face Blizkid, who during their short fight had gotten to his feet and watched in awe as a complete stranger defended him, it was the first time in a long time he could remember any body at all defending him.

"You ok kid?" Red asked in a cold tone, he spoke with a deep gruff and almost inhuman voice, similar to what Blizkid imagined a lion might sound like if it could speak English.

Blizkid noticed the lack of meaningful emotion in his voice, like he was asking out of courtesy and not actual concern, but he couldn't blame him he'd just taken a kick in the chest defending him.

"Ya" Blizkid said scratching the back of his neck with his hand, he didn't like being called "Kid" without having a "Bliz" at the beginning of it, but he put his feelings aside and decided what to do next.

"Thanks by the way...not to many people stick up for me" he admitted in a shame filled tone, at the moment he wasn't to proud of being overpowered by someone who he could have easily beaten with both eyes closed had he had the courage to do so.

"I was just doing the right thing" Red said, once again without concern "You know...you should stick up for yourself don't let assholes like him walk all over you, it'll ruin your life, trust me I know", this time when he spoke he had a hint of care for Blizkid in his voice, at least it was a start Blizkid thought to himself.

Noticing that Blizkid had to stop and think about it Red realised that he probably said something he shouldn't have, he had a nasty habit of saying the wrong thing to the right people, he gave an inward groan and made his next educated move.

"Say..kid..er...pal, I never got your name" Red said, that being the first nice thing that came to mind, Blizkid's face light up like a Christmas tree, almost bright enough to give off a blue neon glow, Red smiled, seeing the boy so happy was like getting an early Christmas present.

"I'm Blizkid" he said extending his hand.

"Red" Red said shaking it.

Blizkid smiled to himself, he could tell this was the start of a friendship, though nowhere near a best buddy sort of friendship, more like an understanding and relating friendship. For once in a long time Blizkid felt good with himself.

Back in his office Robin dragged his mouse over a small program at the top of the page, clicking the left mouse button he brought up a square shaped menu which read "Assign Team, Yes/No" in a light black font, slowly Robin placed his mouse over Yes, he signed to himself, like before he knew the consequences of forming a bad team, but he had to make a choice, slowly and surely he clicked on the button which brought up a second menu, this one reading "Are you sure, Yes/No" once again he clicked yes, this time a entire page was pulled up, it read "All heroes assigned to teams, there are 0 heroes waiting to be assigned", Robin sighed a sigh of contempt, finally he was done, smiling to himself he shut off the computer and rolled his chair over to a small P.A. system opposite the computer, clicking down on a button labelled "Talk" he spoke into the wall mounted device.

"All Titans and Honorary Titans are to report to the Auditorium in five minutes".

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Well Thats Chapter 2 For Ya Hope You Enjoyed, Now It's Time For Yet Another One Of The Captains Crazy Trivia Segments

This chapter took me three and a half weeks to write (mostly cause im lazy..but also because of writers block which is a polite way of saying really lazy)

The Character of Slack was named after one of the writers of the show, David Slack (my way of paying tribute to him and the show...which should never have been cancelled..damn Ben 10 taking over...friggin old man and his stupid nephew...whoops started rambling).

Also regarding Slack i apologize if the martial arts she uses are all bull crap or made up, i was using three martial arts styles i pulled from the back of my head so i apologize if there all a bunch of mumbo jumbo the only one i know is legit is the 5th degree black belt level in karate (cause that's what Wesley Snipes has in real life and as you may or may not know, i Idolize Wesley Snipes.) .

Lightlad is Dr.Light's son (I know he wasn't married in the comics but I don't follow the comics), I plan on making a small story arc about the rocky father-son relation ship the two share, also without giving to much away he and Raven won't get along and I might (this is a big might) write a chapter pairing the two as a team (not as a couple Raven belongs with Beastboy and Lightlad with T...whoops don't wanna spoil it for you)

While still on the topic of Lightlad and the comics, I used Jericho's back-story from the comics to explain why he saw past Lightlad's 'flaw', if you don't know in the comics Jericho is Slades son which is what I assume he is in the T.V. show to.

Red and Blizkid will have a big brother little brother friendship in later chapters, without spoiling to much I can say both have similar backgrounds that let them relate to the other, there like two sides of the same coin, each one representing a way a person can go after a tragedy, Red's the "Hardened Wisecracking Badass" side of the coin, whereas Blizkid represents the "Gentle Shy and Soft-spoken" side.

Tag's back-story will explain why Mas and Menos are M.I.A. (Missing in Action) as well as explain how she became a hero and joined the Teen Titans.

The part with Tag and the squirrel took me the longest to write, I literally cringe every time I read it it's so freaking soft and tame compared to the rest, I apologize if it was lame, I'm not the best at fluff I don't watch movies that lack action or violence.

Before any one says anything the character of Red is highly influenced by Hellboy (property of Mike Mignola and Darkhorse Comics) in terms of his appearance, so, yeah, please don't sue me Darkhorse (Not that I have anything of value you can take from me)

While were still on the subject of Influences I'd like to thank Beastboy-In-Blue (hopefully he reads this) whose character Blizzard was the inspiration for the character Blizkid , you should all read his story and pray that he updates his second one.

Next Chapter: The teams are finally decided and while Slack, Red, Lightlad, Blizkid, Tag and Sev wait for their plane to Hallow City they talk about what they did prior to becoming heroes as well as being recruited.

Please Please Please Please Review, I know I said it earlier but I also know that there are like 20 people who read the last chapter so it's not like this stories being ignored (Which would suck ass cause I think it's pretty good, especially with some of the crap on this site) so please take like a minute out of your schedule, I don't care what you write (so long as it's not "You suck" or any variation of said sentence)


	3. Chapter 3: And The Teams Are

Summary: Follow the adventures of Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and Sev members of the newly organized Teen Titans H.C defending Hallow City from the perilous dangers it faces day-in-day-out. They'll have to face an assorted array of villains including, A psychotic gang lead by a team of super powered teens, a deadly bounty hunter with a mysterious link to one of the Titans, a bloodthirsty werewolf willing to turn any one in his way into a midnight snack, and a multi billion dollar genetics corporation that's not all that it seems, to name a few. But their most dangerous threats come from facing and overcoming each others assorted pasts as a team. Expect tons of guest appearances by the original Titans as well as other D.C. Comics heroes and villains.

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Welcome back Bro's and Ho's (No dis-respek to the playa's out there) The Captains back in action with a chapter that, while lacking a severe quantity of action, has a hefty, hearty, serving of kickassery and should impress none-the-less (And I do hope you're impressed).

Now I know last chapter I said this chapter would be about the To-Be-Titans chatting about their sad miserable lives prior to becoming heroes, but the chapter turned out way too long (twelve and a half pages too long) so I'm breaking it up into two different chapters, the second of which is entitled Terminal Times. Now for what's really important, rambling.

Like in previous chapters I'm going to write down what's on my mind first, so if you don't enjoy when I do this (Though I personally don't understand why you wouldn't) I'd suggest not reading the next two dozen or so paragraphs (But please continue reading the story).

First off, I'd like to give a big thanks to Splint who saved this story from the point of extinction (All of you who read this should take the time and thank him personally) as he was the only one of the thirty something readers who actual REVIEWED, but, on a more serious note, I'd still like to take the time to thank my readers as they are, after all, the ones who really keep the story on the site (So, thanks to all of you, please don't feel pressured to review (But do so out of the kindness of you're heart).)

Secondly, Like I mentioned earlier, this is part one of a two part chapter, I apologize for the shortness and inconvenience of it and how it kind of ends on a crap sentence but I'll make up for both next chapter which is reaching the eight thousand word mark.

Thirdly, The real action in this Action/Adventure/Humour/Romance/Drama/Genre Smashingly Awesome hybrid should start to begin around chapter five. The action will be heavy and intense (Don't take my word for it? Read the reviews) so make sure you have your favourite 'pump up' tune playing while you read. As for the other catagories mentioned above, I'd say there are some slight hints at possible romances in this chapter and the next and of course like always tons of humour to keep you laughing throughout the chapter.

Finally a disclaimer: I still don't own any of the 'Official' The Teen Titans or any D.C. comics characters or places. What I do own are the heroes of this story, Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and Sev, The plot of this story (though that might be debatable) and of course a fat cat named Quinn.

Now for our feature presentation (Presented in your choice of Wide or Kick Ass screen)

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Chapter 3 And The Teams Are...

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Back in the auditorium of the Meeting Building several dozen heroes sat, once again, in the large velvet chairs, busily chatting amongst themselves, like they had done before, as they patiently awaited further instruction from their leader. Heroes constantly emerged into the room, flocking in like sheep, entering through the large opening doors, and, slowly, began to occupy the remaining seats. Many of the heroes began taking up seats beside freinds, wheter they were freinds from before the meeting or friends they had made during it.

Sitting in the thirteenth seat, in the third row from the stage, was non other than Slack. She was wearing a relatively cleaner costume, as apposed to the one she had worn during, and after, her workout, having just came from the showers where she had both showered and gotten dressed in a fresh costume.

The showers were located in the large multipurpose girls washroom, multipurpose meaning it held a great deal of utilities that included, individual marble showers, a clean and fully functional bathroom, personal lockers with extra costumes for the heroes and even a full purpose day Spa, something that the boy's bathroom couldn't boast.

Unknown to Slack, Tag was sitting almost directly behind her, the 'almost' reffering to the fact that she sat two rows behind Slack. Having cleaned herself up from the various twigs and sticks that had clung to her costume. After she'd left the garden, Tag had spent the remainder of her time chatting with various heroes, all male, who all shared one common trait, they all were more than happy to flirt with her while they struck up conversation, though she didn't return the flirt with any of them, she thought it was cute that they tried so desperately to hit on her, but found herself unable to recouperate the feelings they held towards her, as she was still holding out for 'That special someone'.

Tag was now busilly chatting with a hero beside her, said hero was Throwback, a large, muscular, teen who was at least a year or so older than she was. He was dressed in a steryo-typical, Austrailian Outback styled costume, and like his costume would imply, spoke with a thick Australian garb.

His power was that of a 'Super boomerang', a prototype weapon which held the uncanny ability to cut through any substance known to man, be it metal, wood, steel, silver, iron and so forth, with it's secondary power being that the 'Super Boomerang' always found it's way back to him.

Two rows behind and three seats to the left of Tag sat Lightlad, who sat in his seat with great comfort, sitting with his both of his feet kicked up and gently relaxed on the empty chair in front of him, with Jericho and Herald sitting to the left of him, having befriended the two earlier.

As he lay back in his seat and eagerly watching the stage, he felt a strong kick hit his chair, knocking him forwards slightly. At first he ignored it, figuring it must have been an accident, it wasn't like anyone would purposefully kick his chair, then he felt the foot strike his chair, again and again and again, finally, after the thirteenth kick he'd had it. Spinning around in his seat he turned around, only to come face-to-face with an overly cheerful Speedy who sat in the seat behind him, a large, chesire-cat like smile on his face as his left foot repeatedly slammed into Lightlad's chair.

"Can I help you?" Lightlad asked casually, '_No need for theatrics, he was probably just moving or something_ ' he thought to himself.

"Your in my way Lightboy" Speedy said kicking his chair again, Lightlad frowned thinking of multiple way's this could go depending on how he handled it, though, he had to say, in his mind, each one of his thoughts ended off with one of the two getting hurt, he tried to ignore that thought and attempted to continue on with his, so far, peaceful regime.

"It's Lightlad first off and secondly if you wanna keep that foot I'd suggest not kicking my seat" he said, Speedy's eyes, or rather his mask, lifted up on his face as he flashed Lightlad an overly zealous, and at the same time, extremely taunting smile.

"Is that a threat?" he asked in an annoyingly over-exadurated tone, reminisant of a bratty childs' voice, Lightlad glarred, angrily, at him for a slight second before answering his question.

"It's not a Valentine" he said in a annoying tone of voice reministant of the one Speedy had used on him. Speedy's smile waned, slightly, before brightining up to the look he'd held seconds prior.

"Whatever...Lightboy" he said getting up in his seat, purposefully slaming his pelvis into the chair, shaking it violently, and moving towards where the rest of his team were seated.

Lightlad stared at him for a minute, all the while thinking about what a jerk he was in contrast to Jericho and Herald, he hoped dessperatly that the rest of his team wasn't going to be like Speedy was, otherwise he might as well hand in his comunicator right now and save himself the trouble. He sighed quietly to himself before taking a seat back in his chair, hoping for a bright outcome.

As the remaining members of the group began to slowly finish coming in and finding their seats, the light to the room began to dim, like they'd done before, though, this time, everyone in the audiance kept quiet instead of rambling like they'd done before, each one having expelled the remainder of their energy durign the 'recess' and now fully willing to hear whose team they would be placed on.

Slowly Robin's head emerged from the side of the stage, before he began to walk onto the stage, this action gathered the rooms attention as they immediately exploded in an uproar of shouts, hoot's and applause. Robin smiled, though only momentarilly as just as quickly as he'd smiled he began to silence the group with his hands before standing on the same podium he had stood on before, though, this time he drew a pen from a drawer underneath the podium and pointed it at the crowd, he started bobbing it from head to head while he counted to himself.

"Twenty Nine...Thirty...Thirty One...Thirty Two...Thirty Three..." he paused, something was wrong, but he didn't know exactly what that something was. Glancing down at the small paper he held in his hand revealed the problem, he was counting thirty three heroes located in the room, but there were thirty five on the list, thirty five in total, which meant that there were two people missing from the crowd, why? He asked himself, Why did something always have to go wrong?

He lowered his head towards the small microphone and tapped it's shiny silver head twice, filling the room with a loud mechanical "Pudd-pudd", forcing several heroes to cover their ears, finally, after along period of silenceness, allowing the room to get adjusted, he began to speak into the mike.

"Has any one seen-" he paused to look at his communicator that showed the names of all the heroes in the vicinity, he noted that two names were highlighted in red, meaning they weren't within a ten foot radius of the room, he read the names out loud "-Red and Blizkid?".

Suddenly, as if on que by forces greater than the ones present, the exit doors swung open, illuminating the room with the bright golden glow of the sun. Several heroes squinted their eyes as they gazed at the two figures who entered the room fashionably late. The figures happening to be none other than Blizkid and Red, both of whom walked towards the group like nothing had happened.

"Glad you could make it" Robin stated, sarcasm heavy in his tone, watching as the two heroes approached the valley of seats, each with a pair of eyes locked on the duo. Blizkid's face light up in a embarrassed blush, which, almost, made Robin wish he could take back his comment, the 'almost' due, in part, to the fact that Red's face stayed perfectly normal, if not a little too happy, without so much as a hint of embarrassment showing on it.

"Be glad we made it at all Traffic Light" Red said in a tone dark enough to make even the most macho of men shutter. Onstage Robin glarred daggers at him, he wasn't used to being treated like this, especially by a fresh-off-the-presses recruit, but then again, Red was much different then the other heroes who filled the seats before him.

At first he'd shown little to no concern for others, heroes or civillians alike, which, when presented with the typical "I'd give my life to save someone else" rule that applied to the other heroes, seemed almost good enough a reason for Robin to boot him out of the entire Titan community, and it wasn't like he would have been without reason, Red swore, constantly, refused aid from other heroes and had worse of an attitude problem than Speedy, Red X and Johnny Rancid combined, but, what had stopped him from kicking Red out was his sheer dedication he had to bringing villians to justice. The first mission he'd seen Red carry out was a phenominal test of strenght, during which Red had taken a tremendous amount of pain, including a bullet to the thigh, which later required several stitches, a stab wound to the chest and being rammed and almost run over by a truck, all of which he did to bring a gas station robber to justice.

Soon after the mission's success, and the praise he'd received apon it's completion, he had began to warm up to the others, though, he still kept his distance from the other more 'heroey' heroes both physically and attitude wise.

As a mandatory requirement he, along with all the other heroes in the building, had gotten his mind probed by Raven as part of the stress test that would help decide if certain heroes could face the risks of being a hero, part of the test she ran involved dipping into certain times in the heroes past when he or she had faced serious risks and how they responded to them, from the little of his history she'd seen she knew right away to stray far from him and his mind. Later going on to describe what she'd seen as making her life seem like a Disney film, though the specifics of what she'd seen she kept secret, it was still obvious that Red had been through some serious trauma's in his life.

In recognition of this Robin shrugged the insult off and went on with his speech as both Red and Blizkid took their seats in the back row, several heroes watched Red with observing stares, glaring both angrily and worriedly at him, but, apon him discovering their stares, quickly focused their attention back to Robin onstage.

"Ahem. Now that everyone's here I can begin, but before I do I want to get one thing out of the way, the teams were decided professionally and reflect the way you act as a group so don't be disappointed if your not put on a team with your best friend or someone you lik-" before he could finish his sentence he was cut off by a voice in the back row.

"Get to the point" Kid Flash shouted from the back row, Robin gave him a frown of disapproval, ever since Kid Flash had joined Robin was sceptical of him, he was a great hero no doubt but he feared that his relationship with Jinx could become a disaster if she ever, for what ever reason decided to rejoin the Hive.

While the remainder of the Titans had welcomed her into their ranks, several with open arms, He and, oddly enough, Raven still distrusted her, Raven's reason, he imagined, must have been for more personal reasons of which he could think of two occasions when she'd 'invaded' her privacy, one of which was Jinx's invasion of her living quarters, when she, along with the other members of the H.I.V.E. recruits had broken into, and taken over, the Titan's Tower.

Robin's mistrust, on the other hand, was due to the fact that he knew of the lure of evil and just how tempting doing the wrong thing could be, he'd learnt that the hard way when he disguised himself as the villianous theif Red X, as well as his breif stint as Slade's apprentice, both of which he still had nightmares about.

Robin was getting annoyed at being constantly interrupted and it showed on his face, his mask was burrowed deep into his face in angry expression, he slowly tapped his pen on the small podium while glaring, angrily, directly at Kid Flash who sat with a cocky smile on his face.

Robin suddenly felt a surge of anger course through his body, the fact that Kid Flash wasn't taking it seriously was enough to make him imagine leaping off the stage and rushing Kid Flash out of the room, suppressing that idea he continued on with his speach, leaning down and speaking into the mike.

"If I could continue?" he asked, Kid Flash gave him a thumbs up and Robin felt a vein in his head enlarge, once again he suppressed the urge to denounce Kid Flash the right to being in the building, concealed his anger and continued his speech.

"The first team located in-" Robin began his speech while members of the audience silently prayed for Robin to read their names and allow them the chance to be on the teams they so desperatly wished to be on.

Name after name the teams were slowly read by Robin as groups of five slowly arose in their seats and made their way to the stage, once onstage each hero received a handshake from each original Titan, who all stood onstage behind Robin, their plane tickets from Robin, as well as a handshake from him, and then hurried back to their seats, almost all of whom were red faced from being onstage in front of so many people, few could keep straight faces and one hero even laughed so hard he fell over on stage and had to be helped up by Cyborg.

As Robin read the twenty ninth name off the list he smiled to himself, he only had one more team left and he could get back to what really mattered, spending time with Starfire and his friends, no more world wide missions, no more hectic planning, sleepless nights and most of all no more Brotherhood Of Evil, life was good for him.

"Finally last but not least we have Team Six: The Titan's H.C., Located in Hallow City, Michigan, I'd like to call Slack, Lightlad, Red, Sev, Tag and Blizkid to the stage". Robin spoke into the mike, this time his voice no longer carried the semi-bored tone it had before, and instead it was replaced by a cheery optimistic and almost childlike voice.

Slowly the five figures rose, each one with a different emotion plastered on their face, for Slack it was a nervous blush, for Lightlad a shy smile, Tag an optimistic, cheerful smile, Sev a cocky smirk, Blizkid a casual, if not slightly shy and nervous, smile and for Red it was an arrogant frown.

The figures made their way to the stage, stopping every now and then to shake hands with their friends or complete strangers, it was amazing how many people seemed to forget Lightlad's past, look him in the eye and congratulate him, this gave him an extra boost of confidence that he carried with him all the way to the stage.

Once they made it onstage Robin approached the six heroes and smiled.

"Slack-" he said, motioning for her to step forwards, which she did, taking several small steps forward. "-you'll act as a team leader, your skills in a time of desperation have shown that you would make a perfect leader for a team such as this"

Behind her four of the five figures clapped their hands together and cheered her on, the only one not clapping being Red who stood with his arms crossed over his chest, but he still had a congratulating smile on his face, Slack's face turned entirely red and, while shying her shoulders upright, attempting to hide her blush, gratuitously accepted her handshake from Robin.

She walked towards the other figures on the stage, all of whom stood smiling at her, she felt her heart beat increase and felt her face flush up with a nervous blush, though none of the heroes seemed to notice this, or if they did, made little mention of it, she stopped suddenly and gazed at the four teens awaiting her hand shake, each with a kind smile on there faces, she swallowed her fear and took the remaining steps toward the group.

"Congratulations friend Slack you have been chosen to lead your team to victory. I hope you are as great of a leader as Robin is" Starfire said, her cheery voice a pitch higher than usual while reffering to Robin. She shook Slack's hand gently and Slack, in response to this, smiled and walked over to Cyborg, who towered over her by at least a foot .

"Nice job Slack" he said as he shook her hand, Slack smiled politely and walked over to where Beast Boy stood, his usual and comical toothy grin plastered on his face.

"Ya...you rule Slack" Beast Boy said-agreeing with his freinds comment-while shaking her hand, he tried making a joke but his mouth was covered by a dark black aura that Slack knew came from Raven, she stared at the dark sorceress who gave her a friendly smile before speaking.

"I'm glad your leading the team I wouldn't trust any one else" Raven said shaking her hand with the hand she wasn't using to hold Beast boy's mouth shut.

The next person to receive his hand shake was Lightlad, who took all his steps and made all his moves with a level of dramatic flair. Starfire offered him a word of Tamarian advice which had to do with eating six meals a day and making sure he wore clean clothes on a daily basis and getting rest early to fend off "Bites from the bugs of the bed", Lightlad looked confused but played along with both of Cyborg and Beast Boy's assistance and pretended like he understood. Soon after he approached Cyborg who gave him a friendly suggestion about which room he thought would be perfect for him, Beast Boy made a knock-knock joke about an elephant and a ice cream machine that lacked a punch line.

Finally, after much delay on his behalf, he came face to face with Raven.It was hard staring the young woman who caused his family as well as himsef, so much trouble and pain, in the face.

His father's first encounter with the dark sorceress had left him in a mental institution for six months, which not only permanantly scared Lightlad, but had caused his mother, who had already neglected him, to become so wracked with guilt that she began to drown her sorrows in alcohol, quickly becoming an alcoholic. Soon after his mothers new found love for alcohal he learned that his parents were getting a divorce, a by-product of his fathers second arrest. The divorce tore through his family like a knife forced Lightlad to live with a foster family as neither of his two were properly able to care for him.

Though he'd never mentioned his history to Raven or even Robin for the matter, Raven had learned enough of it from the mandatory mind read and felt sorry for him, she felt responsible for it and couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of guilt every time he crossed her path, but Lightlad was like Beastboy and could easily hide his pain behind a wall of funny jokes and wisecracks.

"I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused you" she said softly as she shook his hand.

"I'll bet" was all Lightlad said before letting go of her hand and returning to the rest of the team, Raven felt her stomach cool down with the freezing pain of guilt and tried to hide it, but, try as she may, she couldn't help hide the fact that she truly felt sorry for Lightlad.

Next came an overjoyed Tag who shared a cheery and lengthy conversation with Starfire regarding mustard, hot dogs, pet grooming and cough syrup, all of which seemed random to any one but the two, Cyborg gave her a friendly pat on the back, Beastboy had yet another knock-knock joke for her this one being worse than the other and made both Cyborg and Raven cringe, Tag smiled and gave a slight chuckle before walking over to Raven who gave her a "Congrats" and shook her hand.

After Tag came Sev, Starfire congratulated him and he just barely escaped having to sit through a twelve hour Tamarian congratulation dance, after Starfire came Cyborg who told Sev how to install the security system as well as what room had the best access to the power grid, after Cyborg came Beastboy who had a hand buzzer on his hand which backfired when he shook hands with Sev's metallic hand sending two dozen volts back into his hand and making his hair poof up into a afro, both Cyborg and Sev laughed at this and Raven showed concern for Beastboy as he grabbed his now smoking hand, finally he approached Raven who quickly tried to hide her concern by making a witty comment

"Congratulations you made an immature, childish, imp look bad, it must have taken a lot" Raven said in a lame attempt to cover up her obvious concern for Beastboy, Sev smiled, the sort of smile that said "I know exactly what you're thinking"

"It's what I do best" he said letting go of her hand and returning to the back of the line.

Blizkid shyly walked towards Starfire, he could hardly stare her in the eye he was so nervous, but Starfire quickly grabbed the younger boy into a friendly hug causing him to light up like a Christmas tree, the crowd erupted in a cheer which only added to his blush, On stage Robin looked a little jealous at Blizkid but quickly shook it off.

After Starfire let go of Blizkid his next stop was Cyborg, Cyborg congratulated him and ruffled his hair, Blizkid smiled and went moved towards Beastboy who gave him a friendly thumps up, next came Raven who gave him a gentle smile which he returned before scurrying off to the rest of the team.

Last up was Red, he walked over to Starfire and shook her hand, there were no optimistic comments or hugs from her, just a simple hand shake and a forced smile from both.

Next was Cyborg who gave him a firm handshake and pat on the shoulder, though the two hadn't been the best of friends, they had shared somewhat of a bond, due, mostly, in part for the fact that the two shared the same curse, an appreance that would never be accepted by the entire world.

After shaking hands with Cyborg, Red moved on to Beast Boy who when Red tried to give him a handshake drew his hand back, Red tilted his head sideways and gave him an un-amused smile, Beast Boy gave a cheeky chuckle before actually shaking his hand, finally he approached Raven who kept a stern face the entire time, she gave him a polite smile and shook his hand.

After Red had returned to the rest of the team, Robin walked towards the team and handed each member a small blue envelope with "Oceanic Airlines" printed neatly on the front of the envelope with a picture of a white airplane underneath it. The inside of the envelope held each member's plane tickets, which held their name, current city, destination, seat number, gate number, airline they would be traveling on, departure time and lastly there flight number.

Each member either held or hid away their tickets and used the free hand to shake Robin's gloved hand or put there tickets away and shook his hand, Robin smiled as he finished shaking Red's hand and walked back to the wooden podium, and he leaned his head towards the mike and spoke into it.

"Now that everyone's received their tickets your all free to go and do what you want, now I'd suggest packing, most of you have more than two hours which should be enough for you to get what you need packed, for everything else we'll be sending out delivery trucks with your stuff through-out the next two and a half weeks. Please make sure your not late for your plane because it'll take off with or without you. Lastly when you arrive there should be a specially designed T-Car courtesy of Cyborg parked in the garage of your tower, this will serve as your main purpose vehicle so please don't destroy them unless you know how to fix them, that's all, your all free to go"

With his speech finally over the crowd erupted in cheer, several members could be heard over the crowd chanting "Robin-Robin-Robin", as the team led by Slack headed out the exit doors they barely caught a glimpse of Robin being dragged offstage and tossed up and down by a crowd of heroes.

The newly formed team exited the auditorium as a group and stopped to take a moment to stare at one another, examining the people they would be saving the world with day after day, it was Tag who first made a vouch to introduce her, she walked towards Lightlad, stopped in front of him, smiled and held out her hand.

"I'm Tag, I have the power of teleportation and I'd be honoured if you would be my friend" she said, Lightlad smiled, gently grabbed her hand with his own and shook it.

"I'm Lightlad and I'd be honoured to be your friend Tag" he said, Tag frowned at him and he looked confused.

"You didn't say your power" she said with a smile, Lightlad frowned but noticed the girl's playful frown and rolled his eyes.

"Alright-" he said in an equally playful defeat "-I have the power to wield light into weapons and stuff like that", Tag smiled at him.

"See that wasn't too hard" she said, it was apparent to the others that they were flirting, though it may have been more of a playful flirt it was flirting no doubt.

"Says you" Lightlad said sarcastically, Tag stuck her tongue out at him and moved on to Sev.

"I'm Tag-" she began her verbal exchange with Sev who proved more compliant then Lightlad, smiling the whole time and restraining himself from making any sarcastic comments that might affect the freindship she wished to form. After Sev she made friends with Slack who like Sev was more compliant and much more polite than both of the previous boys , after Slack she made friends with Blizkid who shyly took shook her hand, finally she came to Red who stood almost a foot taller than her, he stood with his arms crossed and a stern look on his face.

"I'm Tag and you are?" She asked him in an innocent and child like tone, which shocked both Sev and Lightlad who looked slightly shocked at her display of bravery towards Red. The duo of Sev and Lightlad found that Red really didn't seem like the kind of guy who you could have a lengthy, if any kind, of conversation with.

"I'm Red" Red said as he shook her hand, both Sev and Lightlad's eyes were wide open by this time, both had different elusions of what Red would do to the girl, seeing as how he was a 'monster' both figured he'd simply act as one, they hadn't expected him to talk, let alone be able to produce sentences, Red turned to them and both quickly turned away and started innocently whistling, Red frowned at the duo.

"So..Slack..erm..boss-" Sev said correcting himself, if there was one thing he didn't want to do it was run afoul of his future boss, at least not right away "-shouldn't we be heading to the airport?".

Slack smiled at his comment, she found it inspiring that her team had such high esteem of her.

"First off you don't have to call me boss or chief or any other title, Slack will do just fine and secondly I think we should pack first...that is if you have anything to pack" she said as she and the others headed towards the large exit doors.

Once the team had exited the building and all stood outside, Sev broke away from the group and took a deep breath of fresh air, he arched his back backwards and stretched his arms; both arms gave a slight 'crack' sound as he stretched them.

"Ahhh" he moaned out in a relieved tone "I haven't been outside all day, just smell that beautiful Spring time air, smells like-" he paused to take a snif of the air and immediately his face became sour "-dog crap".

He glared down at his shoe, to find, much to his horror, that he'd just stepped in a large pile of dog dung, at this his face became even more sour as he immediatly rushed over to a small patch of grass and began rubbing his shoe on it in an attempt to clense it of it's tampered state.

Lightlad, Slack, Tag and Blizkid all held back laughter as they watched Sev continously run his foot back and forth over the pile of grass.

"Aww man, I'm never gonna get these stains out" he said as he finished wiping his shoe off on the grass, the others smiled and Sev smiled too, he had to admit had it happened to anyone else it would have been extremely funny.

"Well..as much as I'd love to stay and chat I really should get packing, see you guy's at the airport in a couple of hours" he said as he headed off in the direction of the parks exit.

The others watched as he headed off in the opposite direction, he stopped at a bus stop and sat down on the bench, as the bus pulled up and stopped he looked back at the group and waved them goodbye before ascending the steps onto the bus.

"As much as I'd hate to leave you guys I gotta pack too" Lightlad said breaking off from the group, he stood in a field and took a small leap off the ground, once in the air his 'backpack' started to glow a bright yellow glow and a small 'V' shaped flame came out from the bottom of it.

They watched as Lightlad took flight, his 'jetpack' was like nothing any of them had ever seen before, it emitted a yellow glow from the bottom of it as it propelled his body threw the air at break neck speeds, it looked like he could control direction he flew in by moving his body up, down or side to side, he flew towards the city, stopping in the air twenty feet away and forty feet up to wave to them before jetting off again.

The next person to leave was Red, he said his goodbyes to the small group and started walking towards the sidewalk that led out of the park, as he walked out of the park he raised his hood over his head, masking his abnormal facial features and making him look almost normal, had it not been for the tail he would have been able to walk the street completely unnoticed.

"Well...looks like it's just us" Blizkid said to the two older female members of his team, both smiled at him politely before Tag spoke up.

"So where are you staying?" she asked trying to spark a conversation, the question being targeted at both of them.

"I'm staying with a friend downtown" Slack said with a smile; Blizkid smiled and cleared his throat before he spoke

"I'm staying at the tower" he said proudly, both girls smiled at him, it was easy to tell that he was eager to make friends with anyone and everyone, he was like a teddy bear, be it a blue and white teddy bear, but he kept a level of innocence only a child could have, there was no doubt his quiet and shy demeanour was to hide a tragic past.

"Really?...I'm staying there too. You know come to think of it I think I've seen you around the tower" Tag said recalling several times she'd seen the younger boy walk through the hallways, often taking time to chat with other members his age or older.  
He was usually talking with the duo of Starfire and Beast Boy, who seemed to relate more with him than other heroes, who usually shunned him politely or avoided him rudely, she was embarrassed to say that she belonged to the first group, shunning him the first time he'd tried to strike up a conversation with her, though, in her defense, it was after a long day of training where all she wanted to do was shower, but still, it felt somewhat aweful at the moment, though she could hardly say he noticed.

"We'll, I'd better get going" Blizkid said as he saw the other heroes all exiting the building, some immediately flew in the air and headed towards different parts of the city, he saw the Titans politely push there way through a crowd of both fans and heroes as they advanced towards the T-car.

"See you later Slack" Blizkid said as he places both of his hands in front of his body, suddenly a large walkway of ice began to form on the sidewalk infront of him, the ice lifting his body off the ground and raising him into the air several dozen feet.

Blizkid now stood on a small, circular patch of ice, which, as he created more ice in front of his body, melted behind him, leaving nothing but a large, soaking puddle behind him. It was interesting for both girls to watch such a young boy wield so much power.

"Sorry Slack but I should be leaving too" Tag said with a frown on her face, she felt bad abandoning her new friend like this, Slack sensed this and gave her a soft smile.

"It's ok, I'll see you at the airport in a couple of hours" Slack said in an attempt to comfort her, Tag's face immediately brightened up, igniting with an extremely large, and almost childlike, smile, which strechted from ear-to-ear.

"Then I'll see you later Slack" She said before blinking her eyes shut, her body dissapearing in a cloud of white smoke, which was slowly begining to vanish.

Slack looked interestingly at the puff of white smoke that had once been her new friend and team-mate, there were definitely things about her team that she'd need time to get used to, this white smoke disappearing act being one of them.

"Yeah, see you later" Slack said as the smoke slowly spread out and eventually disappeared. Frowning to herself at the lack of company she now held, she turned on her heel and headed for her current living quarters.

She was staying with a friend of hers who lived in downtown Jump City, the house was nothing fancy but she was thankful her friend could put up with her. As she headed downtown her mind began to wrap around two seperate ideas, the first was: How she'd say goodbye to her friend, who'd spent the last, God knows how many months letting her live with her, and the second, a thought which brought a smile to her lips, the thought of how much fun she'd have with her new friends, the adventures they'd share togheter. For once in what seemed like a long time things were looking up for her.

* * *

Three chapters down hopefully hundreds more to go, but now it's time for the one, the only The Captains trivia.

This chapter originally had a long drama heavy scene featuring Lightlad and his alcoholic mother arguing about how he kept his Lightlad persona a secret from her and how she didn't want him to go down the same path his dad did, but I'm saving that scene for a later chapter focusing on Lightlad.

Next Time: As the team preppares to board their flight to Hallow City they spend some quality time getting to know one another as well as learning to deal with the ups and downs of being a Teen Titan.


	4. Chapter 4: Terminal Times

Summary: Follow the adventures of Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and Sev members of the newly organized Teen Titans H.C defending Hallow City from the perilous dangers it faces day-in-day-out. They'll have to face an assorted array of villains including, A psychotic gang lead by a team of super powered teens, a deadly bounty hunter with a mysterious link to one of the Titans, a bloodthirsty werewolf willing to turn any one in his way into a midnight snack, and a multi billion dollar genetics corporation that's not all that it seems to name a few. But their most dangerous threats come from facing and overcoming each others assorted pasts as a team. Expect tons of guest appearances by the original Titans as well as other D.C. Comics heroes and villains.

* * *

Welcome Back ladies and germs (Hahaha...but seriously you guys rule). The Captains back (Please..please, hold your applause) with a brand spankin' new chapter thats hot of the presses (I'll stop with the 'new' jokes now) totalling this awe inspiring story to 4 chapters of non stop asskicking making this 96 chapters away from my goal of one day writing a 100 chapter story for the people of the Internet (My other goals include, being a clown and running my own circus, owning a giraffe or elephant (Im not too picky), coaching the Dallas Cowboys and making 32 billion dollars) 

I'd like to start things off with a up to date review of what's going on around my neck of the woods (Cause' I know you all care so much about me) .

First off, you might notice this chapter's a little diffrent from the last (If you don't that's cool...it just means your a little slow) that's because I've taken on a whole new writing style. After reading more than two (but less than four) books in the past two months I've learned a lot of new writing tricks (Did you know sentances have to start with a capital letter and end with periods...me either), as well as how to spell words correctly, proper punctuation and so forth. So expect a somewhat different chapter than the one's your used too (But change is a good thing don't forget).  
Also I'd like to apoligize for any mistakes regarding the words Their and There for some reason my god damn Microsoft word kept reading it wrong and since I'm pretty lazy I assumed that the spelling corection was right..but it wasn't (What a shock), so here I am telling you all about it...I could have gone back and fixed them...but I am pretty lazy.

Secondly, I finally got Microsoft Word (Can I get a hell ya?), so this chapter will not only have less spelling, gramatical and punctial mistakes but should be much cleaner and easier to read, I'll be the first to admit it's not great (Hell it's far from it) but it bridges some gaps in the story line. Personally on a scale from 1-10, I'd give this chapter a seven, aside from giving a little backstory to a few of the characters, some funny quotes and showing possible love intrests for certain characters it's pretty much a 'Skim over once' chapter, but i promise starting next chapter I'll have some real substance, Im talking about real action, action crazy enough it would make Chuck Norris sweat...well not really but it'll be pretty big on action)

Thirdly: Since Lost is officially over tell late February I've replaced it with an equally addicting but so much more violent and disturbing show,Oz (I know it's not on the air...I just rented a couple of DVD's and watched those). If your not fammilliar with Oz, it's a sick, twisted and brilliantly disturbing show about how sick, twisted and disgustingly disturbing prison is (After watching what happened to poor Beecher in episode one I'm going to tone down my illegal activities from 'Life without parole' crimes to 'Slap on the wrist' crimes) Now the reason i brought this up was...something to do with...something...hmmm...I remeber telling my self not to forget...ahh screw it.

Fourthly: I've decided to start pushing myself to write a page (In Microsoft Word that is) of the story a day, meaning updates should happen more often than not, so fan's can all rejoice knowing that Im working my ass off for your enjoyment.

Fifthly: This is the longest chapter I've had the pleasure of typing (Nearly 10000 words here) and would like to take this time to say that all chapters after this will be equally, if not longer, than this chapter, so if you don't like the idea of reading 9000 words in a sitting, I might (Depending on what critiscm I recieve for it) break longer chapters into two part 'Story Arcs'.

Sixthly (Damn...Six already), I'd like to thank Splint (again) for reviewing, as well as my other readers, I know a lot of you don't review (That's cool with me..well not really but I'm glad you're reading the story) but I seriously can't keep typing chapter after chapter without recieving any form of compliments or criticism, so all I ask is that you take thirty seconds to write a simple compliment "Good story. I like that you did..." or constructive criticism "You're story would be better if...", so just keep in mind that YOU hold the power to either keep alive or destroy this story.

Finally, A disclaimer, I don't own Teen Titans (Oh but if I did...there'd be nonstop action, Beastboy and Raven would be officially togheter (Take that all you RobRae shippers), Robin would be downsized to "Silent Leader" as apposed to his "Mouthy Leader" attitude (I don't like Robin if you couldn't guess) and of course the characters Slack, Red, Tag, Sev, Blizkid and Lightlad would be frequent guest characters as well as having there own spin off show...Titans H.C (Kind of like a good CSI spin off...too bad there arn't any).), what i do own are this story, the characters, a copy of Gears Of War (Sickest (Sick in a good way) game of all time) and hopes of one day owning my own Nintendo Wii (A man can dream can't he?)

And now after much delay for the sake of adding words to my word count, I proudly bring you Chapter 4.

* * *

Chapter 4 Terminal Times. 

Two hours had passed since the team split up and went to pack, some like Tag and Lightlad owned more possessions than others and had dedicated all their free time to packing, whereas others like Red and Blizkid owned less possessions due to there semi-permanent stay in Jump City, but now that the time was passed everyone packed, no matter how much they had to pack.

Twelve miles outside of Jump City sat Jump City International Airport, a large grey building that housed more than thirty terminals and could hold more than seventy airplanes at once, currently there were only thirty planes and less than twenty terminals open, but still the entire personal was putting double there usual effort into there work, it was a known thing that the Famous Teen Titans would be arriving on that day, and with them dozens of news crews and reporters and Jump City International had to maintain the image of "Best Airport in North America"(As voted by People Magazine).

Deep inside the airport, past the baggage checkout and security, Red sat on a empty bench patiently awaiting his fellow members, the area he stood in was devoid of people aside from himself, no curious kids asking there parents whether or not Red was a monster, no disgusted men and women trying there hardest to ignore Red, no crying babies being cradled by there mothers who assured them that Red was just "A bad dream" but most importantly no bird brained Robin to give him orders.

As Red saw it he and Robin were like polar opposites, Robin was a heroes hero without so much as a bad bone in his body, it was true he'd at one point dressed as Red X as well as been Slade's apprentice but both times he was trying to expose the enemy not be one, Red on the other hand differed largely, he may not have been a villain, but his life up untill now couldn't be summarized as a fairy tale, he'd cheated, stolen, threatened, fought and even killed to get where he was today, though unlike a villain he wasn't proud of any of the things he had to do to survive, but growing up without a normal appearance or a billionaire foster father with a secret superhero alter ego did seem to make all the difference.

He lay his head back on the seat and was planning on taking a short nap as he waited for the rest of the group, part of him hated doing what he did, saving people, he knew that he would never be openly accepted into the world for his appearance, he'd saved half a dozen people, all of whom were less than happy to discover their "Knight in shining armour" to be a six foot tall monster, he never once got a "Thank you" from any of the people he'd saved, it bugged him, but like so many things that pestered him, he pushed it out of his mind and replaced it with memories of the past hour of his life.

Exactly an hour earlier he'd gotten his baggage checked by a woman who was less than compliant to work with him, after spending more than twenty minutes getting his bags checked out he spent more than checked through security where dozens of the people in line stared at him and silently whispered to there neighbours about him, he hated when people did that, when they hid behind a wall of quiet chatter and assumed because he was diffrent he was evil and a freak, it made him sick. After he'd gone through security he'd tried his hardest to avoid further confrontation with other people, finding a nice, quiet and empty part of the terminal to relax in, he'd since had no problems with other people.

He sat on the empty bench with one leg crossed over the other and his back against the seat, the seat was made of a uncomfortable plastic and filled with a foam like substance that didn't seem to want to settle. He used his left hand to play with the metal zipper on his jacket while he tapped his right hand along the metal pole holding the bench up, he was wearing a different jacket then the one he'd worn to the meeting building, he was now wearing a black hooded jacket with deep pockets on both it's left and right sides and the same red "R" insignia on the back, underneath his jacket he wore a black muscle shirt with a similar R insignia to the one on his jacket printed on the middle of his shirt.

As he sat, he placed his hands on his lap and silently tapped them along to the beat of _The Sound of Silence_ which was playing softly over the speakers above his head; he closed his eyes and laid his head back on the back of the chair.

"Hmm I didn't take you for a Simon and Garfunkel fan" he heard a voice from in front of him, he looked upwards to see Slack standing in front of him with a friendly smile on her face and had a small black backpack draped over her left shoulder.

"Just passin' the time sweetheart" Red said offering her the spot beside him, Slack smiled and took the seat, there was an uneasy moment of silence between the two before Slack broke it.

"I'm sorry...we didn't really get too meet earlier, I'm Slack" she said softly, offering him her hand, Red took it in his and shook it gently, Slack immediately noticed that his skin was much warmer than hers, an unnatural kind of warm, like a child with a high fever warm.

"Red" Red said shaking her hand politely, Slack felt her face heat up and tried her hardest to suppress the building blush, Red noticed this and smiled a light smile, it had been a long time since he'd made a girl blush, a _real_ long time.

"Well well well, what do we have here? A couple of Juvenile delinquents no doubt" a voice called from the side, both teens turned there heads to see Lightlad standing there with a cocky smirk on his face.

In response to his comment Slack's blush increased and Red looked considerably angry at him, Lightlad saw both of there expressions and his smile widened.

"I can see clearly that you two were having fun without me, a little to much fun by the look on Mrs. Tomato's face", Lightlad said, as he said this Slack's blush continued to grow and Red became more furious.

"Funny guy" Red said as he stood up so that he was right in front of Lightlad, had it not been for the height difference between the two they would be face to face. Lightlad looked up at Red and smiled a sarcastic smirk.

"I do what I can" he said in a sarcastic tone, both glared at the other, there was a dead silence surrounding the two as they continued to stare at the opposite, finally something broke the silence, someone to be exact.

"Can you two please act your age?" Slack spoke up as she stood in-between the two aggressive teens, using her body to break up the aggressive spell that the two had on the other, Lightlad gave Red a 'Listen to the lady' look and Red mouthed something that looked remarkably like 'Vacuum' (It starts with an "F" and rhymes with "Duck Poo"...give up?)

Both teens shot each other a final "Stay out of my way" glance before taking their seats; again the area was filled with an uneasy silence that lasted for a good five minutes, finally Red spoke, breaking the silence.

"So...any idea where the rest of our rag-tag group of miscreants are?" Red asked, sarcasm playing off his tone, Slack shook her head 'No' and Lightlad smiled before speaking up.

"I think I saw that Snowboy or whatever his name is down at the front with the rest of the heroes, basking in the glory of the public no doubt" Lightlad said taking a seat on the bench next to Slack, the seat plopped as he sat in it as he tried evening out the weight of his body.

"It's Blizkid not Snowboy...Light bulb" Red said to him from his side of the bench, Lightlad rolled his eyes at the insult and made a un amused face at Red's insult.

"What are you his boyfriend?" Lightlad asked, Red was about to stand up in rage but Slack stopped him, he growled under his breath before mumbling a number of expletives at Lightlad, hearing this Lightlad smiled to himself.

Again the area was filled with a uneasy quiet, this quiet continued for a short time when suddenly the room exploded in a chorus of high pitched squeals, shouts and cheers as a large group of heroes walked into the room from the two large entrance doors.

The group was followed by nearly two dozen camera crews, each one shoving there expensive equipment into different heroes faces, among the group of heroes were both Tag and Blizkid, Blizkid looked uneasy around the media whereas Tag looked more than happy to start a conversation with a attractive looking reporter.

As the group finished entering the airport they were suddenly swarmed by hundreds of fans who seemingly came out of nowhere, many of whom were dressed in poorly constructed costumes that reflected there heroes costumes, the fans were all of different ages, they saw several kids who looked to be ten or eleven as well as some fans who looked old enough to be receiving social security checks.

The trio watched as fan after fan attempted to get several heroes autographs, they also saw as several of the heroes, who took the attention to there heads, starting to gloat and demonstrate their powers.

Speedy was busily flirting with a trio of attractive blondes who had cartoony stars in there eyes as they watched their hero gloat about how he had "Single handily stopped the entire Brotherhood Of Evil and didn't even break a sweat".

Tag, now finished with her short interview, had several attractive male fans her age flirting with her, though she didn't seem to return the flirt with any of them, instead she seemed bored and un amused, she looked across the room and saw the trio sitting on the bench, her eyes immediately light up and she politely made her way out of the group and headed towards the trio but not before taking Blizkid by the arm and leading him with her, Blizkid looked more than happy to oblige having narrowly escaped a brigade of fans looking for free ice for there king sized Titan brand soda cups, one of the many fan made pieces of Titan esque products that were 'Less than legal', though none of the Titans seemed to mind this or any of the other pieces of products that bore there likeliness on them.

"Hey guys" Blizkid said as he approached the group, he had a small brown bag though his bag wasn't a suitcase but a small camouflaged coloured bag with a pair of dog tags hanging from a hole on top of the metal zipper, he sat in the chair beside Red and put his bag on his lap.

"Hello everybody" Tag greeted, she had several more bags than the other's, two brown handbags both of which she carried in her hands, she lay both handbags on the ground to the left of the bench and took a seat beside Lightlad who looked more than happy to have her sitting beside him.

Red gently grabbed the dog tags, they were rough, sharp and slightly rusted around the edges though that didn't bother him as he read them, they read.

Prowler (Last name)  
Clifford T (First name and middle initial)  
(Normally there'd be a social security number here but since Blizkid's dad comes from a fictional city it's not here)  
O+ (Blood group)  
Catholic (You can probably guess this one)  
(I think these are what typical Dog Tags have written on them, I appoligize in advance if it's wrong I get all my info from Wikipedia so it's probably all wrong)

Red looked confused and stared up at Blizkid who was busy watching a group of girls his age who were sitting at a small coffee shop, he watched as the trio of girls laughed as one of the girls, a blonde, spilled her glass of coke all over her pants, but his thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

"These yours?" Red's voice called out interrupting his line of thoughts and bringing him back to the world, he was quiet for a minute before speaking up.

"These? No they belonged to my dad" Blizkid said uneasily, Red looked a little confused at his shaky sentence and thought of a mistake he may have made just then.

"Your Dad was in the army?" Red asked. Blizkid nodded his head 'Yes' before he spoke up.

"Yep he fought in the Gulf war I think" Blizkid said proudly, Red smiled at his sudden attitude change, there was no doubt that Blizkid was different, though not in a bad way.

"I'm sorry to interrupt but did you say your dad fought in the Gulf War?" Slack asked, Blizkid nodded his head, and Slack looked surprised.

"Why do you ask?" Blizkid asked Slack smiled a half smile before speaking.

"My brother fought in the Gulf War too-" she said with the half smile slowly turning into a sad frown "-but he didn't make it home".

"I'm so sorry Slack" Tag said from her side of the bench, she'd been somewhat listening the whole time and just a few words back started really paying attention, she liked the idea of a happy family and seeing as how she was now regarding this as her family was upset to see her 'sister' saddened.

"It's alright...it was a long time ago, I was only three when it happened" Slack said with a smile, Tag smiled too and both sat back in there seats, there was now an uneasy silence filling the area around them, all that could be heard were the rambles of the other people occupying the terminal.

"Say...aren't we missing Mr. Dog Crap?" Lightlad asked breaking the uncomfortable silence that had stirred up due to the last conversation; Lightlad was referring to Sev who the others suddenly noticed was noticeably missing from the group.

As if on que a very happy Sev walked happily towards the group, he was coming from a larger group of teenage girls who were all waving goodbye to him, he smiled back at the group of young women before returning his glance to the group in front of him.

He had the same clothes he was wearing at the meeting building on with the exception of a pair of large headphones wrapped around his neck, with it's long cord stuffed into his pocket.

"Sorry to be tardy to the party-" he said slyly as he approached the group who were all staring at him, he had several pieces of crumpled paper in his hand as well as a black back pack slung over his right shoulder "-but as you could tell I was a little busy. I tell ya you give those fan girls a autograph and a smile and they give you a phone number and seven dozen names for the kids they want you to have with them..hoo hoo and lemmie tell ya some of them are hoooot",

The others stared at him, not laughing, not smiling, not even slightly amused, just staring, there glares penetrating his comedic defences making him feel very uncomfortable, he grabbed at his collar and gently tugged at it.

"Tough crowd...tough crowd" he said pulling at his collar again, the group kept there un amused faces on him and his once smiling face fell into a shot down frown, now he really felt nervous, no one had gone two jokes without cracking so much as a smile, he was about to comment on this when Tag smiled, he sighed in relief and sat down beside Blizkid.

The group sat quietly for some time, Tag started a conversation with Lightlad that only the two of them could follow, Slack was listening to music using a green Ipod Mini (If only they paid me for this product placement), Red was napping with his hood up and his head rested on the bench, Sev was watching the group of heroes slowly break off into their teams and head to their terminals, and Blizkid was covering his growling stomach.

"I don't mean to interrupt or anything but I'm kind of hungry" Blizkid said as his stomach gave a low pitched growl, he covered his stomach with both arms and squinted at the slightly painful sensation his hunger caused, he hadn't eaten all day, the last meal he'd had was when Cyborg cooked a 'goodbye' meal for the group who were leaving, he'd only eaten a little and was now reggretting it.

"Ok...our plane leaves in fifty minutes so we have time for a quick dinner" Slack said and looked around the terminal in an effort to find a good meal.

To the left of them was a country style bar and grill restaurant called "Cowboy's Steakhouse", with a long slim cowboy hat shaped neon light above the restaurant, proudly displaying it's name with a neon glow, the restaurant was built in the shape of a barn and had hay bundles for chairs and large wagon wheels for tables.

_'Not even if I was a Redneck' _she thought to herself, she stared at her next option and her mouth went agape, in front of her was a fancy restaurant called "Le Bistro", it was a darkly light restaurant with a lounge singer who played classical music, fancy dinners were being served by a mostly male staff who looked around Slack and Tag's age and acted extremely friendly with there guests, now that was a place she really wanted to go to, she looked over at Tag who looked the same way at the restaurant.

Finally to the far right was a casual looking restaurant called "Donnie's", it wasn't fancy like "Le Bistro" was nor was it tacky like "Cowboy's Steakhouse" was, it was somewhere in the middle, not too fancy but not too themed, like the bowl of porage that was just right, still Slack wanted to go to Le Bistro but that looked like a lost cause.

"Ok...there's three places but only one right choice, I say we do this the old fashioned way, we play shoots" Sev said, the others looked at him with the same un amused gaze they had given him minutes prior, he slumped his shoulders in defeat and put on a frown "Or not".

"Clearly the right way to do this is to vote" Lightlad said walking in front of the group, he turned around so that he was now face to face's with the team, he put both hands forward to stop them, they stopped and he began to speak.

"Now if you want to go to Cowboy's raise your hand" Lightlad said, none of the heroes raised there hands and he frowned, he'd really wanted to go there but it looked like that wasn't the place he'd be going, pulling his face up into a smile he asked again "Le Bistro?" he asked, both Tag and Slack raised there hands a little to eagerly, Lightlad rolled his eyes, "Sorry ladies but looks like the others want to go to Donnie's" he said omitting the last vote as he already knew the result, both girls frowned and stared one last time at Le Bistro.

Three of the four male members smiled as they headed towards the restaurant, either unaware that they had made the female members upset or they didn't care, they were followed by Slack and Tag who, as much as they didn't want to, headed towards the restaurant, they walked halfway to there destination before Blizkid broke off from the group.

"I..uh have to use the washroom" he said uneasily as he headed towards a smaller section of the terminal with two large grey doors, the others shrugged only Red looked slightly curious, seeing as how the bathroom was the opposite direction he was heading, but putting his curiousness aside he continued with the group.

They stopped at the door where they were greeted by a attractive female teenager a little younger then Slack, she stood behind a wooden stand and was wearing a blue and white uniform with a name tag that read "Jennifer", she smiled politely as the heroes stood in front of her, inside she felt a little nervous being around them, most of them seemed normal, but then again there was the red one.

"How can I help you?" she asked, Sev smiled and stepped forward, a sly and attracting smile plastered on his face, she looked at him, he seemed more normal then the rest, that was aside from his metallic right arm, but compared to the tail coming from the red skinned teen, even that seemed almost normal.

"Hey were looking for a nice table. Something with class I'm sure you know what we mean" he said flashing her a smile, she smiled at him and felt her face blush a tad, _'At least he's nice and kind of...cute'_ she thought.

"I'll see what I can get you guy's" she said as she walked the opposite direction, Sev turned around on his heel and stood with his back relaxed against the podium and a satisfied smile attached to his face, he dusted his knuckles off on his shirt and spoke.

"Am I smooth or wha-" he said but was cut of when the podium he was relaxed on tipped over backwards, Sev, having his entire weight balanced on it fell with it, he tumbled over the podium and fell flat on his face, quickly he swung his feet around and stood up, slamming his head on a table on his way up and again falling to the floor, this time he used his metallic arm to grasp a stable counter and pull himself up, once up he dusted himself off and put on a cheeky smile.

"Oh your real smooth" Lightlad said with a smirk, Sev rolled his eyes and turned his head around, he was met with the sight of all of the restaurants patrons staring at him, he felt a little uneasy but put on a smile and spoke.

"Thank you folks I'm here all week" he said with a cheeky smile, the people in the restaurant looked some what un amused but went back to their meals; Sev gave a quick relieved breath and walked back to where the rest of the group was standing.

Some time later Jennifer, the waitress, came back with five or so menus in her arms and the same smile she'd held before still on her face.

"If you'd follow me?" she said as she led the group through the restaurant, several people eating at the tables took time to stare at the heroes, mostly Red, Red in recognition to this shot several of the observers dark glances that caused them to immediately turn there attention away from the crimson giant.

As each member sat down Jennifer handed the menus to the group and pulled a black pen out of a pocket on her uniform and a pad of paper from the back of her pants, she smiled again and placed the pen on the paper.

"Can I get any of you drinks?" she asked.

"I'll have a diet coke" Slack said, Jennifer nodded and scribbled down "D Coke" on her pad of paper.

"I'll have a glass of orange juice please" Tag said smiling to Jennifer, Jennifer smiled, nodded again and wrote "O.J." on her pad of paper.

"I'll have a coffee" Lightlad said, again she smiled and scribbled, this time she scribbled down the full word instead of an abbreviation.

"I'll just have a coke" Sev said, Jennifer smiled at him, it wasn't a casual smile more of a admiring smile, Sev returned it and she turned away, but only for a second.

"And for you...sir?" she asked Red, pausing slightly as she felt her heart beat increase as the monster on the far end of the table stared her in the eyes, she swallowed and tapped her pen on the sheet of paper.

"Water" he said briskly, she smiled her typical fake smile that accompanied the job and quickly skipped off in the opposite direction, leaving the group to sit in silence before Lightlad decided to spark a conversation.

"So..what did all you do before being recruited? I mean I can't really see Red working at a J.C. Penny's" he said, curious to learn more about the heroes he'd be spending months maybe even years with, from across the table Red glared at him in response to this he gave him a cheeky smile.

"I was in Guatemala when those two adorable heroes Mas and Menos came back to help save there village from a monster, I helped them defeat it and eventually Bumblebee offered me a spot on the team and a trip to America" Tag said with a smile as she replayed the memory in her head, she neglected to mention a few facts about the story, like how Speedy had unsuccessfully flirted with her and how she'd had a slight crush on the nice guy Aqualad.

"Wow. Guatemala I hear it's beautiful there" Slack said excited to learn more about her fellow hero, understanding where she, as well as the others came from was step one in being able to relate to them, and relating was key to being a leader.

"Oh it sure is; they have trees as tall as a house in all colours" Tag said smiling at Slack, she was more than happy to talk about her native country, especially in good light.

"Well I'd hate to interrupt but I have a pretty cool back story if I do say so myself" Sev said interrupting the conversation, the female duo rolled there eyes but still listened.

"I was in Hong Kong working at a repair shop when who should stop by, none other than Cyborg looking for a repair on his left leg, well I fixed him up so well that he offered me a place with the others" Sev said, this story wasn't followed by any complements or questions of how nice of a place Hong Kong was which depressed Sev.

"I stopped my da..er-" He said stopping himself from mentioning that Dr.Light was his father had they not already known, "-Dr.Light from robbing a bank in downtown Jump City, of course the others didn't trust me at first.., but when I saved them from a chameleon robot freak they were so eager for me to join they were almost begging" Lightlad said leaning back in his chair.

"I was living with a friend in Jump City when I helped stop the Hive Five from robbing a jewellery store with Kid Flash and Jinx" Slack said, suddenly all eyes were turned towards Red who sat in his chair balancing a butter knife on his index finger.

"I saved a five year old kid from becoming a grease stain on the front of a speeding train, only the kid didn't like the idea of being saved by a 'monster' so he called the police, then the Titans showed up and chased me around the train yard, we fought, i ridiculed them on 'first impressions' and somehow everything sorta' fell into place after that" Red said moving the butter knife from his index finger to his middle finger slowly.

The others sat silently for a minute before Jennifer came back with there drinks, she handed Slack her diet coke with a smile, Tag her orange juice, Lightlad his coffee, Red his water and finally Sev his coke, she handed it to him with a napkin under it, she smiled at him and mouthed "Flip it over".

Sev flipped the paper over and smiled, on the bottom side of his napkin was a seven digit number that he guessed was her phone number, he flashed her a smile and gently put it in his pocket.

"So can I get you guy's anything to eat?" Jennifer asked, Sev opened his menu, quickly looked it over and spoke.

"I'll have the Bacon cheese burger with no tomatoes" he said and handed her his menu, she nodded, smiled at him again, pulled out her small pad of paper and pen and scribbled down "B-Cheese burger, Tomatoes" and crossed out the word tomatoes with her pen.

"I'll just have a garden salad please" Tag said gently handing her, her menu, Jennifer smiled politely and took it, holding it in her left arm she scribbled down "G-salad" on her pad of paper before looking at Lightlad.

"For you sir?" she asked, Lightlad folded his menu closed, handed it to her and smiled before he spoke.

"I'll have a chicken burger" he said, she smiled and scribbled down "Chick-burger" quickly on her paper.

"For you miss?" she asked Slack, Slack took a minute to look at her menu, narrowing down her choices to either the chicken salad or the chicken breast, after a second minute of deciding she closed her menu, handed it to Jennifer and spoke.

"I'll have the chicken salad" she said, again Jennifer scribbled down something on her paper before turning her attention to Red.

"And for you sir?" she asked, Red already decided what he'd wanted from the minute he saw the menu; he handed her the menu and spoke.

"I'll have your best steak as bloody as humanly possible" he said, once again she scribbled down something on her paper before spinning on her heel and heading towards the kitchen to deliver her orders.

From across the table Tag had a disgusted look on her face, the others gave her a confused glance before Lightlad finally broke the silence.

"What?" he asked plainly, she frowned at him and spoke.

"How can you eat meat? It's wrong" she said, Sev smirked and Red smiled a twisted smile, Tag's disgusted look increased as she saw how lightly the two were taking her, she frowned and spoke again.

"Do you know how many animals had to die to make Lightlads burger?" she asked, this time it was Red's turn to smirk, he raised his hand in the air the same way a student does to get the teachers attention.

"Not enough?" he asked, Tag looked both angry and disgusted at him.

"No. At least three" she said before explaining how chicken burgers were made of not just chicken but turkey and sometimes even cow, again Red smirked.

"Oh your breaking my heart" he said in a mock concerned voice, Tag looked angrily at him, seeing the anger in her eyes Lightlad stood up.

"That's enough man" he said, Red too stood up and glared daggers at him.

"What are you her boyfriend" he said repeating the insult Lightlad had used on him earlier, Lightlad felt himself get not only angry but a bit shy, he realised he had a blush on his face and tried to hide it.

"No but your being an asshole" he said, Red smirked.

"I'm an asshole?" Red asked tauntingly.

"Yeah. A stupid, red assed, monkey tailed, freak of an asshole!" Lightlad said aggressively, this insult seemed to affect Red more than the previous insults as his face was now burrowed into an angry expression.

"Screw you Light bulb!" Red shouted gathering the restaurants undivided attention, the loud and painful wails of a young baby could be heard from a table two booths away, Red and Lightlad stood glaring at each other for what seemed like ages before Lightlad broke the silence.

"Nice one Red...you made the baby cry, probably just got a good look at you though" he said through gritted teeth, Red stopped glaring at him and stabbed his butter knife into the table.

"You got a problem Light bright?" Red asked, Lightlad smirked.

"Yeah I do its big dumb and red" Lightlad said, Red glared at him again.

"Listen nutsack your one flick of the wrist away from being a full body cast!" Red shouted.

From her seat Slack looked both angry at and embarrassed the fighting duo, the other members of the team looked questioningly at her, she too worried what might happen between the two but as team leader she had a job to do, she stood up in her spot which was located in-between the two of them and gave her first order as a leader.

"Enough you two, you're acting like a bunch of kids and I don't want to have to play Referee to you two over and over again!" She shouted at the two fighting members of her team, Lightlad huffed loudly and sat down, Red glared angrily at him and walked away from the table and towards the exit.

"Where are you going Red?" Slack asked, her aggressive tone gone, replaced with a worried one.

Red looked back at her, she no longer had her brows burrowd into an aggressive frown but reversed into a sympathetic look of concern, Red silently took a breath before speaking.

"I'm going to find the kid" he said angrily before storming off, leaving the others in a deathly quiet silence, there gazes moved, one by one, towards the butter knife stabbed through the table, it became apparent to them at that moment that angering Red wasn't the best course of action in the future, they sat silently, no one in the entire restaurant moved said so much as a word, then the baby started crying again, and everything seemed to slowly go back to normal.

Across from the restaurant, Blizkid sat on a stool behind a large grey table that was part of a unfinished lounge area in a shadowed part of the terminal, his gaze focused on a young boy and his two parents who were showering him with love and affection, he felt jealousy build up in his stomach as a tears started to form in his eyes, it wasn't fair, he wanted to be loved like that, be with a family that openly accepted him and wasn't ashamed of him, but more importantly he wanted to be normal like the boy was.

"Jealous?" he heard a voice from behind him, he spun around quickly in the chair, a little to quickly for his own good, as he finished spinning he came face to face with Red who had a sympathetic look on his face, Blizkid could tell he wasn't here to make him feel bad or call him down for being soft.

"You know you shouldn't feel like you're a freak, you aren't the one with a tail after all. It's like my mom said at one point or another 'There's no such thing as normal, just the impression of it'-" Blizkid smiled to himself as he could tell Red was being genuinely nice but Red wasn't finished his sentence as he began to speak again "-of course she did leave me to die in an alley five hours later" he said rather bitterly.

Blizkid stared sadly at his friend, from what he could tell Red was just as much, if not more, angry at the world as he was, looking closer at Red he could see not just hate in his eyes but also a deep hurt, like a lost puppy that only needs a place to stay only to get turned down every chance he gets.

Red felt the anger quickly build up in his body while referring to the woman he called mother, the woman who gave birth to him then left him to die like a dog, but with one deep yoga esque breath his anger just as quickly subsided, caving inside him and tearing at his inside like so much more of the hurt he'd buried inside him over the years. He couldn't understand for the life of him why the boy, the perfectly human boy was so depressed about his appearance, Red would quickly take up that form in the drop of a dime, here he was, a large monster of sorts, ostracized from his peers for his brutish and demonic appearance, unable to fit in with a crowd because of his appearance and unable to get any positive reactions from those he braved hell and high water to save and the kid, sure he stuck out like a sore thumb, but he didn't have nearly the negative appearance that Red did, no one cowared when he walked by, they just shied away and returned their gazes to whatever it was they were doing previously.

Putting his feelings aside he stared at the silent boy beside him who had a less than excited look on his face, he thought for a minute before speaking.

"Say kid why don't we go back to the resturant and get a sundae...my treat" he said, Blizkid took a final look back at the family, he swallowed his jealousy and hopped off the chair and started chasing after Red who'd gotten a head start, Re was now halfway between the restaurant and where Blizkid was, Blizkid quickened his pace and eventually beat Red there.

Red and Blizkid walked back to the restaurant where the others sat waiting silently, there meals had been delivered to them by that time and each member had taken a few bites of there respective dishes, as Red approached them Lightald stood up, Tag looked at him briskly, and he rolled his eyes and spoke.

"Red...uh-" he stopped to scratch the back of his neck, again Tag looked sharply at him and he frowned at her "-I'm sorry that I.uh...said that stuff about you...so uh...we freinds?" he asked holding his hand out, Red stared at him, Lightlad looked slightly confused.

"What are you 'going to do. Stare me to death?" he asked sarcastically, gaining an angry look from Red, Lightlad threw his arm in the air and glared at Red.

"You know what fine...here I was, a god damn good Samaritan offering you my hand in friendship but no you had to be all walking tall thinking your the toughest son of a-bitch around, well you know what screw you!" Lightlad said angrily and sat down, Red frowned before he too took his seat, Blizkid looked uncomfortably from Lightlad to Red then back to Lightlad, Tag tugged him on the shoulder, pulling him towards her head, she whispered something into his ear and he too frowned before taking a seat beside her.

Across the table Red sat in his chair, his left hand grasping the dull steak knife he'd gotten with his meal, his right palm laid on the table with his fingers spread out, he stabbed the knife in-between his fore finger and his index finger, the others all stared silently at him, was this how he got rid of his pent up anger, through acts of self harm?

"Red, man, I'm sorry alright" Lightlad said from his side of the table, Red stared at across the table at him, he stared for a solid five minutes before shaking his head.

"Yeah…me too" he said silently, Lightlad looked a little shocked at the fact that he not only accepted his apology but apologized too, maybe Red wasn't as bad as he thaught he was.

Blizkid sat more silent than the others, his stomach growled softly and he covered it with his arms, Red noticed this, looked at his plate and frowned, he grabbed it with one hand, got out of his chair and moved to the empty space beside Blizkid, lowering his plate in front of Blizkid, Blizkid looked at him questioningly, Red nodded and handed him his fork and knife.

"Well it's not exactly a sundae, but it's food isn't it?" Red said Blizkid smiled at him.

"What about you?" he asked stabbing the fork into the steak and using his knife to cut off a small piece.

"Some how I think I'll live" he said sitting back in his chair, from across the table Slack looked impressed by Red's display of generosity, this look seemed to travel from face to face as the others all shared her look.

Twenty minutes passed as the group eat almost silently, taking the odd break to talk to there neighbour, for the most part it was a peaceful meal, finally everyone was getting along much to the surprise of Slack, she'd expected at least one fight to break out between Lightlad and Red in the time but to her surprise nothing had happened.

As the group finished eating, Jennifer the waitress came back with a small black envelope; she placed it on the table and quickly skipped off in the opposite direction.

Slack took the envelope and opened it, inside were several small mints wrapped in a white plastic package, Sev and Lightlad reached across the table and grabbed as many as they could fit into there hands, returning back to there seats and storing the candies in there pockets like a squirrel storing his nuts for winter.

"Is that a bill?" Lightlad asked as he finished stuffing the last mint in his pocket, Slack read it quickly and nodded.

"Wait…there billing us?" Sev asked in disbelief, again Slack nodded slowly.

"I don't believe this we save the world every day and they have the nerve to bill us..who do they think they are?" Sev asked, Slack shrugged her shoulders and reached into her utility belt, she pulled out a small blue and white plastic credit card with a large white "T" on it, Sev looked confused.

"What the hell is that?" he asked, Lightlad chuckled.

"Your kidding right?" Lightlad asked, Sev shook his head in a sideways 'No'.

"Dude everyone got one of these, there our Official Titan Issued Credit Cards…they pay for everything, clothes, food you name it" Lightlad said pulling out his own card.

"Huh…guess mine got lost in the mail" Sev said, Lightlad smiled.

After the bill was paid, with much delay due to a debate about Sev's "Rule" where he refused to tip waiters or waitresses which paralleled Tag's rule of "Always give to those who served" the two made peace with the idea of giving Jennifer a ten dollar tip, the group moved to the terminal where there plane was prepairing for take off.

The small terminal had several long leather benches were less than thirty people sat awaiting there plane, a big screen T.V. playing a old news report showing the Teen Titans stopping Dr.Light, the video included several shots of Lightlad in heroic poses as well as calling him "The Hero Of The Day", Tag congratulated him after she watched the report, in response to this Lightlad turned a shade of red that could rival Red's skin colour, they group sat, chatting and sharing stories for a good twenty minutes before a announcement came over the intercom telling the heroes and the others that the plane was ready for departure.

As the civilians and eventually heroes boarded one by one, Red stood looking uncomfortably at the small hallway that led to the airplane, he swallowed and took a deep breath.

"What's wrong?" Slack's voice asked from behind him, he turned around slowly and stood staring at her.

"I've..uh…never flown on a plane before" he said uncomfortably, it took a lot to make Red uncomfortable, he'd seen things that would make most men cringe, yet here he was practically trembling at the idea of boarding an airplane.

Slack smiled gently, she'd flown dozens of times in her life, to her there was nothing better than flieng, seeing the world below her slowly shrink to the size of ants was one of her favorite parts of flieng and she wanted to share that with Red.

"Well now's a good time to start Red" she said taking his hand and leading him towards the hallway, he started following after her slowly, he was shaking slightly and small traces of sweat could bee seen dripping down his face, he wiped the sweat away with his sleeve, took a deep breath and continued walking down the hall that led to the plane.

Finally he and Slack stood in the doorway of the airplane, it was much larger than he'd imagined it to be, in his mind he pictured the door to be a small submarine like hatch that led to the cockpit of the airplane but now that he was face to face with the full sized door he felt stupid for thinking that.

Slack walked in first, she was no longer holding his hand instead using her now free hand to grab her tickets from her utility belt, she handed them to a stewardess (I think thats what their called) who ripped the back of it off and wished her a nice flight, Red swallowed, pulled out his tickets and stepped onto the plane, the stewardess smiled as she took his tickets, she ripped the end like she'd done with Slack's and smiled.

"Seat 3-F, enjoy your flight sir" She said, Red thanked her briskly and walked through through the hallway towards his seat.

He as well as the rest of the team were sitting in First Class, it was much nicer than coach, the chairs were bigger and more comfortable and had much more leg room, on the back of each chair was a T.V.

In his row Blizkid sat in the window seat, his head rested gently against the glass, he was fast asleep and looked like he'd been for some time, beside him Sev sat with his headphones attached to a headphone jack in the armrest, he was laughing at something, Red could see a cartoon show on the T.V. attached to his seat, the characters were all running around the room in a extremely fast way, it was childish but Red guessed it was what was making Sev laugh his head off.

Red took his seat beside Sev, the chair he sat in was incredibly comfortable much to his suprise, he was use to sitting in uncomfotable chairs made of rough metals, the steel benches in the meeting building and the metal stools in the airport to name a few so this change of seating was greatly appreciated by him.

As he sat, still a little uncomfortable, he felt the plane shake slightly which only added to his uncomfort, he swallowed and sat back in his chair, trying his hardest to relax, above him a rectangular sign flashed a orange light and made a 'Bing' like noise, this added to his uncomfort. The sign had a picture of a cigarrette that was crossed out and a picture of a seatbelt that was iluminated, Red geussed it meant 'Buckle up'.

He stared at the seatbelt on his lap, it was unlike the car seatbelts he was used to, it had a two straps each ending with a mechanicle device, one was a flat sheet of metal with a square shaped hole in the middle and the other was a small box half the size of his hand, he stared both confused and uncomfortably at them for a minute, finally a pair of hands reached atop his lap, each hand grabing one of the peices of the buckle, while the pair of hands did the buckle up Red traced the hands upwards to be met face to face with Slack, she smiled gently at him and Red couldn't help but return the smile, this continued for a short while a stewardess walked past them, in which time Slack turned her head away in an attempt to hide the blush that had built up on her face.

Slack, now with her blush fully vanished, lay back with her head rested gently on the seat, in the two seats next to her Tag and Lightlad sat lightly flirting with the other in the form of a 'serious' disscusion about the puppets on a kid's television show that was playing on the small T.V's attached to their chairs, she reached onto her utility belt and pulled out the same Ipod Mini (Again some corporate advertizing...but what'cha gonna do about it?) she'd listened to earlier, she spun the wheel untill her curser hit a playlist labeled "Naplist", she clicked the center button twice, as the music started to play she closed her eyes and let it slowly drown out all of the surounding the noises that the plane made as it prepared for take off, slowy she felt herself drift off into a deep sleep, a deep, peacefull sleep, not so much as a worry polluting her mind, leaving room for nicer thaughts, like how nice it was too see her team finally getting along, how the chairs in first class were as comfortable as a soft bed and just how beautifull Guatemala really was.

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Well that's chapter 4 hope you enjoyed it almoast as much as i did writing...er...typing it, now for another one of The Captains Trivia Segments ('cause I know ya love them so much) 

So as you can tell I gave a little bit of backstory to each character, a little more for some (Red, Blizkid and Slack) and less for others (the rest of the group), but I promise you that each character will have a chapters focusing on their backstories (With some others such as Red, Blizkid, Slack and (possibly) Lightlad who have more backstory than the other heroes), these chapters will have 'flashbacks' to their earlier lives and will almoast always begin with a 'flashback' and the character whose flashback it was waking up from a dream (You can call it a Captain trademark. Tarantino has his 'Trunk shots', Speilberg has his 'Insane Camera Angles', Uwe Boll has his "Video game movie abortions" and I have my 'Wake up from Flashback' sequences).

Slack's mentioning that her brother was in the war as well as her story at the diner table involving her freind who she lived with weren't just there to take up space and without spoiling too much I can say that both will be the focus of one of her chapters.

To save time later I'll let you know now that Red doesn't have full knowledge of his birth and abandonment so what he said will contradict with what really happened (Just lettin' ya know so you don't say "Well that doesn't make sense" because it does you just have to keep reading)

Donny's was supposed to be a parody of Denny's where a typical graspy voiced, old aged waitress served our heroes their food without respecting them, but somehow that idea got lost, instead I made Donny's into a Applebee's kind of place, The crabby waitress was replaced by Jennifer and I completely tossed the idea of them being treated like dirt. The other resturants Cowboy's and Le Bistro are also parodies of famous resturant chains, Cowboy's is a parody of the resturant Montana's and Le Bistro is just a parody of those "Fancy" resturants. (Sorry if this was boring info...I just thaught I'd add it for kicks)

Each character's story at the dinner table about how they were asked to join the Titans will be written sometime in one of the future chapters, Originally i planned on having them as prequels leading up to the first chapter but...somehow that idea got pushed aside and well here we are.

Next Chapter: As our heroes plane lands in the infamous Hallow City our heroes learn that Hallow City may need more help then they can give as they face off against two impending dangers, the first is Biogen, a genetics company that happens to be Hallow City's number one source of income but Biogen has a less than noble agenda when if comes to their experiments, Biogen also happen to be led by a man who has various ties to Hallow City's seedy underworld. Their second problem lies in one such tie, a gang of vicious street teens called The Reapers who are led by a group of super powered teens with their minds set on not just beating the Titans but destroying them.


	5. Chapter 5: Settling In

Summary: Follow the adventures of Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and Sev members of the newly organized Teen Titans H.C defending Hallow City from the perilous dangers it faces day-in-day-out. They'll have to face an assorted array of villains including, A psychotic gang lead by a team of super powered teens, a deadly bounty hunter with a mysterious link to one of the Titans, a bloodthirsty werewolf willing to turn any one in his way into a midnight snack, and a multi billion dollar genetics corporation that's not all that it seems to name a few. But their most dangerous threats come from facing and overcoming each others assorted pasts as a team. Expect tons of guest appearances by the original Titans as well as other D.C. Comics heroes and villains.

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Howdy Folks and Welcome back to another exciting chapter of the one and only TEEN TITANS HALLOW CITY (Please take this time to applaud). This is your host, your ghost host with the most, Captain J.T. Wolfe, I will be with you until the end...of this chapter that is. 

So, after promising action in this chapter for the past three chapters I'd like to take the time to apologize for the lack of any, I know I said there would be a lot of it, but the fact was that I just couldn't fit everything I wanted into one chapter (Otherwise this chapter would be close to twenty thousand words long), but next chapter I promise there will be, actually this is just Part 1 of a two Part-r, so next chapter for sure (If I don't, I give you full permission to kick me in the nuts...virtually not physically that is).

But now for what's really important, changes, developments and emotional junk that happened to me since last chapter.

For starters you may notice that several chapters before this seem rewritten, that is, of course, because they are. Realizing that I had tons of time on my hand one lonely Friday night, I took the time to go back and edit all spelling and (most) punctuation mistakes I made, So...yeah..it's gooder now.

Secondly, Hanukkah came and went (To the anti-Semites reading this, this is the part where you pack up your bags and head back to what ever hole you crawled out of), I got gifts..well really just 'a' gift. A brand spankin' new Ipod Video (at the cost of my old Xbox and Ipod Mini that is..Man I say 'That Is' a lot). So far I have over three gig's of songs and over a half Gigabyte of movies (Mostly Trailer Park Boys and The Boondocks. but there's some serious Seinfeld and Oz on their too).

Thirdly, The Holiday Breaks started, which means I have more time to write (Whooo..Writing), so you'll be glad to know this story will be over shorter than it normally would have. I also have plans for the Holiday's so I won't spend all my time writing. I plan on spendin' a weekend at my Cousin's place, he's got a giant ass TV and every Terminator Movie, an Xbox 360 with Gears Of War, Rainbow Six Vegas and Call O' Duty 3 and Surround Sound.

Fourthly, I picked up a new 'TV show of the month', 'Over There', for those of you unfamiliar, Over There is an excellent show about The War In Iraq, it's brutal, it's violent, it's gory and most of all it's politically correct, the show only lasted for a season and since I've seen half the episodes I'm sad to say this show will be short lived on my "TV show of the month' and will probably be replaced with another show.

Fifthly, Chapter Six should be out sometime in the next two to three weeks judging on what reviews I get (Hint, Hint) and how much I'm willing to type (which in turn is affected by reviews), I'd like to again (Again) thank Splint for reviewing (Is he the only one who enjoy's this story or what's the deal?), He's the sole reason this story's alive and kicking as apposed to...not alive and not kicking, so Cheers Mate, MerryChristmas (I know you don't celebrate that Wacky Hanukkah like me and I'm almost certain you don't celebrate Kwanza, but If you do hey...Happy Kwanza (Sorry if I spelt that wrong, i found like twenty different ways to spell it) and Have a Happy new year.

Which Brings me to Topic number five, Happy Belated New Year everyone and a merry Christmas, Krazy Kwanza, Chappy Chanukkah and kick ass what ever else you celebrate (Hey I'm no racist Everyone's got theire own beliefs and that's cool with me), hopefully you got great crap under the christmas tree/Hannukkah Bush or Kwanza...thing (Sorry if that offended any one...I try not to sound too edgy online)

Finally, a Disclaimer. I do not own The Teen Titans or any other D.C. owned character mentioned in this chapter or story, The Song "Don't Worry Be Happy" or any other licensed material in this story. What I do own are, The Heroes, Slack, Red, Blizkid, Sev, Tag and Lightlad, the plot of this story and who could forget...oh wait I just did...No I remember, A BRAND NEW IPOD VIDEO (I'm not gloating I'm Just happy).

Now please, buckle up, strap on your "Kick-Ass" goggles and get ready to get your socks knocked as you read this amazing chapter I call...

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Chapter 5: Settling In 

The plane touched down roughly on the runway sending violent vibrations throughout the plane, Slack immediately felt the shock and awoke.

At first she was unsure of where she was, she saw a large dark hallway with dozens of comfortable seats with an equal number of bodies in each seat, slowly her memory started to come back, she remembered she was on a plane….to Hallow City…because she was a hero.

Slowly Slack turned her head to her right, in the two seats next to her she saw Tag with her head gently relaxed on Lightlad's shoulder, with his head laid gently on top of hers, both were fast asleep, she smiled softly to herself, she had to admit the two would make a good couple.

To her right she caught a glimpse of Blizkid yawning himself awake, he rubbed the dust out of his eyes with his fists and turned his head towards her, he smiled and waved slightly.

"Are we in Hallow City?" he asked in a quiet whisper, trying his hardest not to wake either Sev or Red who were both fast asleep in the seats next to him.

Slack moved her head past the two sleeping bodies and glanced out the window, she couldn't see much from her angle but what she could see was a dozen or more skyscrapers, she guessed that they were in Hallow City.

"I think so" she whispered to him, he smiled and looked out his window, he too saw tall sky scrapers, they were much taller than the ones in Jump City some almost doubling the size of the tallest buildings in Jump City.

In what looked like the middle of the city stood the tallest building of them all, it was a circular futuristic looking sky scraper with a smaller building of the same design attached from the middle down to past what Blizkid could see, the building had a series of metallic tubes that came from what looked like the back and stretched around to the front, forming a sort of metallic skeleton around the base of the building, Blizkid wasn't sure what the building was, to him it looked like something he'd find in a Science fiction movie, but he was sure they'd soon find out exactly what this building was and what it did.

Several of the other passengers in their section of the plane slowly began waking up, yawning and stretching their arms as far as they could reach before slowly bringing them back down to their bodies, a few of the passengers started unbuckling their seatbelts as a voice rang over the intercom.

"This is your captain speaking, we've now reached our destination of Hallow City, and the time is currently 8:25 P.M. We thank you for flying with Oceanic Airlines and hope to see you again" The captains voice recited from the many intercoms along the top of the plane.

Blizkid looked to his right to see Red and Sev slowly waking up; Red stretched his arms forwards and slowly brought them back towards his body, all in one swift movement. Sev stretched his arms upwards and gave a loud and overly enthusiastic yawn before bringing his arms down fast, his right elbow slamming down on Red's head, Blizkid had the feeling this wasn't accidental, Red turned towards Sev, anger burning in his eye's, Sev gave a cheeky smile, Red sighed and undid his seat belt.

To Slack's right both Tag and Lightlad were slowly waking up, at first Tag looked unsure as to where she was, then she saw the side of Lightlad's head and blushed heavily, in her seat Slack smiled to lightly to herself.

Lightlad opened his eyes and slowly sat up in his seat, he turned to his left to see a blushing Tag staring at him, he looked confused and began staring at himself, looking for what it was that was making her blush, had his fly been undone? Wait that was right…his costume didn't come with a fly.

"What?" he asked in a half nervous, half panic filled voice, Tag, with the blush still attached to her face, pulled his head down towards her face and whispered something in his ear, as soon as she was finished his face light up with a bright red blush, he scratched the back of his neck with his right arm and looked the opposite direction of her, had he been watching her he would have seen that she too was blushing while looking away from him.

Meanwhile, the other passengers were slowly walking through the isle leading out of the aircraft, on their way several passengers stopped to get a good at the heroes, as if they were examining them or judging them, Tag politely shook hands and introduced herself as well as the others to several passengers including a trio of younger children, two girls and one boy, who were so eager to meet her as well as the other's that they practically leapt on her lap when they first met her.

Finally, after what seemed like hours to an impatient and uneasy Red, the plane was devoid of all costume-less passengers, making themselves and the flight attendants the only ones on the entire plane which also made Red feel slightly uncomfortable.

Red stood up slowly, making sure to not slam his head on the overhead baggage compartment, getting out of his seat he walked through the plane, heading towards the exit, having had both an uncomfortable and uneasy ride he had no intention of staying on the plane any longer.

Following after Red were both Blizkid and Sev, both stopped momentarily to grab their carry on luggage from the overhead compartments and soon after followed after Red, though none of the duo was as eager to get of the plane as Red was they were both eager to step into Hallow City for the first time.

Slack watched as half of her team left the plane, leaving only her, Lightlad and Tag left on the plane, Tag began to get out of her seat and move towards the exit, she did this with great ease as apposed to Lightlad, who following after her was having a much harder time getting through the seats.

He took a step forward only to have his foot caught in Tag's unbuckled seat belt that was laying on the, though he didn't seem to notice, he took a second step forward only to have the seatbelt wrapped around his leg tug at his leg, forcing him to fall forwards, as he fell the belt wrapped around his leg twisted his leg sideways causing his body to spin around so that if he hit the ground it would be back first, right when he was about to hit the floor he was suddenly stopped. He opened his eyes slowly and found himself gazing eye-to-eye with Tag who'd stopped his downwards descent with her arms.

"Quiet the catch you are…in both senses of the word that is" he said with a sly smile, Tag felt her face heat up and she quickly brought both hands to cover it, dropping Lightlad to the floor in the process, his body made a loud 'Thud" as it hit the floor and even shook the plane slightly.

"Oh…I'm so sorry" Tag said as she quickly bent over to his level, he smiled at her and quickly got to his feet, brushing himself off he spun on his heel to face her, she had a small blush on her face as well as a hard look of concern for him.

"It's alright…I've taken worse falls" he said, Tag's concerned face slowly changed back to her usual happy smile, Slack, who had been watching the two lightly flirt for the past twenty minutes was starting to get slightly annoyed, sighing she cleared her throat before she began to speak.

"Maybe we should get moving" She suggested, Tag and Lightlad both nodded lightly and after taking their possessions from the overhead compartments began to descend down the hallway that led towards the planes exit, Slack smiled to herself, she'd just given her first command to her team-mates, be it a small almost useless command, she still felt relieved that neither of the two rebelled her leadership.

Outside the airplane, Red, Sev and Blizkid sat on a bench in the middle of the exit terminal, Red was slouched in a sleeping position, his head covered again by his hood, Sev had his headphones attached to his ears and was bobbing his head along to, what the others assumed to be the beat of whatever song he was listening too and Blizkid was sitting up straight in his seat, he had a excited look on his face, a look that one could tell came from eagerness.

Seeing the others walking towards him, Blizkid tapped Sev on the arm, Sev slipped the headphones off of his ears and using his robotic arm raised Red's hood over his face, Red grunted and slowly opened his eyes, in front of him stood the other half of his team, Slack, Tag and Lightlad.

"Having a nice nap?" Lightlad asked cynically.

"I was…then you showed up" Red responded with an equal level of Cynicism in his voice, Lightlad smirked and was about to say something when Tag stopped him by putting her hand on his shoulder.

"So…we' heading out any time soon? Because I'm dying for a nice long nap in a snazy fancy bed" Sev said from his spot on the bench. Slack, realising that the power was in her hands, looked around the airport. To her right was a long hallway that had a bright green neon sign above it, the sign showed a picture of a suitcase with "Baggage Claim" written underneath it, to the left of the first picture was a second picture, this one showed a room with two doors, one opened the other closed and had "Washrooms" written underneath it.

Slack plotted her next course of action, the others, as well as herself, would need their possessions before they moved to the tower and seeing as how they, or at least she, had put whatever luggage they had on the plane instead of carry-on, they'd have to stop at Baggage Claim first.

"We should go get our stuff first" she said pointing towards the long hallway, the others nodded their heads slowly and began their trek down the hall, Slack led followed by Red, Blizkid, Lightlad, Tag and finally, Sev followed behind the group, his headphones attached to his ears and his head bobbing along to the beat of an excessively loud rap song, the lyrics of which consisted of a rapper repeating "Booty-Butt-Cheeks" over and over.

At the end of the hallway was a large white room, the room was practically empty, with little furniture littering the room, there was a T.V. in the farthest corner with several small chairs surrounding it. In the middle of the room sat a large 'U' shaped machine with a large conveyer belt on top of it, in the middle of the 'U' was an A.T.M. like machine made of a shiny silver metal, on the top of the machine was a small flat computer screen that displayed a picture of the 'U' shaped machine and had the words "Baggage Status" and "Soon" underneath the picture.

Red, Sev and Lightlad sat in three of the four seats that surrounded the T.V., Red sat with the chair positioned backwards so that he was leaning over the metal 'back' of the chair, the other two teens sat in their chairs normally aside from being stretched out lazily, all three were watching a kid's T.V. show that involved several puppets dancing around to a Tie-dye coloured background while a cheery song played, the music drowning out the cries of the other puppets.

"Change the channel, I hate this show" Red said as one of the puppets pulled out a large mallet and swung it at another puppet, the others didn't seem to share his opinion as they both burst into laughter.

"You just don't get it man" Sev said as he finished laughing. Onscreen the puppet who had just been hit by the mallet pulled out a larger hammer and swung it at the mallet clenching puppet.

"What's to get?…it's just some deformed puppets beating each other senseless with a background soundtrack that sounds like it's from circus or something, Hell I've had more fun watching laundry" Red said, Sev and Lightlad smirked.

"Man….you don't watch a lot of T.V. do you?" Sev asked from his chair. Lightlad who had stayed relatively quiet during the two's argument shifted his body into an upright position.

"Fine I'll change the channel…Anything to get you two to shut up" Lightlad said grabbing the remote off the small TV stand to his right.

He flipped through the channels at a speedy pace, one by one each show moved off the screen, replaced by images of fighting, explosions, gun fights and general violence, finally Lightlad stopped on a channel.

Onscreen a group of teen's, all dressed in ridiculously over exaggerated costumes, fought a villain who was dressed in an equally over exaggerated costume, each hero on the show looked vaguely familiar, as if the others had seen them before.

"What's this crap?" Red asked, he wasn't too fond of cartoons, having never seen any during his childhood and only as recently as two and a half years prior being exposed to them, he'd never caught on to the idea of 'animated' adventures, the closest thing to a cartoon he'd ever enjoyed were Curious George books which he read when he was younger.

"This is that new show…Extreme Teen's" Lightlad said pressing his thumb down on the 'Volume Up' button the remote, the volume increased and the area in which the TV could be heard increased.

"This looks really familiar" Sev said.

"Yeah, I'm getting that too" Red said.

Onscreen a teenaged character with spiky blonde hair, dressed in a blue, yellow and white costume pulled out a long silver staff and swung it around his body, the character looked incredibly familiar to the others, but so did the other characters on the show. To his right was a blue haired, light purple skinned, female character dressed in skimpy clothing, to her right stood a shorter and obviously younger character, he had dark blue skin, red hair and a completely green costume over his body, behind him stood a silent girl character, she had light black skin, green hair, a white leotard with a hooded cape attached to it finally to her left stood a tall white teen, his body was entirely made of machine, save for a few human parts littered across his body.

"This looks really familiar. I mean like Déjà Vu familiar" Sev said from his chair, there was something familiar about this characters, something he couldn't put his finger on.

"I think I know what you mean" Lightlad said.

Onscreen the obvious leader character was addressing his team mates by name, even they seemed familiar to both Lightlad and Sev, the first character, the male leader, was named "Sparrow", next, the girl to his right was named "Sun Flame", the teen to her right was "Monster Kid", the quiet girl was known as "Crow" and finally the robotic teen who looked much older than the others was named "Robot".

"I swear, I've seen that Sparrow kid before….I mean I know he's a cartoon character and all but still" Lightlad said. The others fell silent for some time before Lightlad switched the channel to a show called 'Cooking with Elzar Bam', a TV show that both Sev and Lightlad seemed to enjoy.

Across the terminal, Slack stood relaxed against a large glass window, to her right Tag and Blizkid sat in a pair of stools that were attached to a small table that in turn was part of a now closed restaurant, Tag and Slack were watching the other members of their team arguing playfully amongst themselves, Blizkid, on the other hand, sat with his head relaxed on his knuckles, staring blankly out the window at the small parking lot.

Tag spun backwards in her stool and was now facing Blizkid who was unaware of the change, she moved closer to him in a comforting way.

"Are you alright?" she asked startling Blizkid, he leapt slightly in his seat and turned towards her, she had a gentle smile on her face, it was weird to Blizkid to see someone so happy all the time.

"Yeah I'm fine" he said uneasily, Tag, while slightly naïve, could tell this wasn't the case.

"Please, Blizkid if you have any problems you can talk to me" she said putting a comforting arm around his shoulder, he looked up at her and began to speak.

"It's just, well back when I was living with the others, I never really did anything, the others didn't think I was 'fight worthy' and kept me at the tower when they went on missions, actually I think they kept me out of pity" Blizkid said and slumped his head downwards.

"What makes you say that?" She asked, Blizkid raised his head in excitement, no one had ever asked for his opinion before, well at least not many times.

"Well….when Robin and the others first found me I was being beaten up by a bunch of drunk college kid's…he saved me but didn't look to happy about it" Blizkid said uneasily, he wasn't all too sure that Robin really did like him, he'd gotten the feeling from time to time that Robin disliked him for not being able to stand up for himself and only put up with him due to both Starfire and Beastboy's liking of him, but it that wasn't his fault that he had little courage…was it?

"Blizkid, although I have not had the chance to watch you fight, I am more than sure that you will make a great addition to the team" Tag said encouragingly, Blizkid's frown quickly diminished, replaced by a joy filled smile.

Exactly after Tag had finished expressing her opinion on Blizkid's spot on the team, the computer in the middle of the 'U' shaped machine started to display the words "Unloading" and "Now", replacing the words "Baggage Status" and "Soon", shortly after the words prompted on the screen, the large grey conveyer belt was brought to life, it moved slowly around the 'U' shaped machine, causing a loud inhuman sound to be heard throughout the area.

All three of the T.V. watching teens turned their heads towards the machine, slowly each one got up and walked towards the machine, Red first, Lightlad second and Sev last. The trio reached the machine, were the other members, Slack, Tag and Blizkid, already stood patiently awaiting the machine to deploy their selected baggage.Slowly a large black backpack rolled out of a shoot attached to the machine, the bag was being dragged by the conveyer belt, bumping against the metallic curb of the machine, spinning it around in place.

Sev reached his arm towards the backpack, he gripped the leather handle on top of it and pulled it towards his body and he slung the bag over his right shoulder and awaited the rest of his baggage. Several more bags came out from the small shoot, two backpacks, both coloured a dark shade of pink, a large suitcase of the same colour, two smaller black suitcases, a light blue suitcase and finally a black duffle bag, the pieces of luggage slowly traveled towards the group. Each member grabbed their specific luggage, Tag grabbed the several pink coloured bags and suitcase, Lightlad grabbed one of the black suitcases, Slack the other, Blizkid the blue suitcase and Red the duffle bag.

"Where too boss?" Sev asked in a mock military accent, Slack smiled a fragment of a smile and pointed towards a large revolving door where the group could see what looked like a long black car parked in front of the door, judging by the size of the car and it's position closed to the door, the group could guess that this car was their 'pickup'.

"Right O' captain" Sev said this time using a mock British accent, Red smirked and both Blizkid and Slack smiled. Sev smiled to himself, they were starting to warm up to the 'Sev Charm'.

The group took a minute to wait for Tag who was piling bags on top of other bags in an effort to reduce the amount she had to carry; she wore the first pink backpack over her shoulder with the second relaxed on the suitcases long handle, finally when she finished the group, led by Slack, headed towards the revolving door.

As Tag walked towards the exit she felt the smaller bag on top of her suitcase slowly falling off the suitcase, she tried shaking the bag back on the suitcase but the small band holding it on snapped in half, the bag fell to the floor hard and landed with a 'thud'. The force of the fall opened the bag and several dozen of her personal belongings scattered across the floor, she sighed to herself, put down her suitcases, bent down and started picking things up. As she reached for a heart shaped alarm clock she felt someone else's hand already on it, she gazed upwards to see Lightlad smiling at her, holding the clock with his left hand.

"I thought you could use a hand" he said as he put the clock back in her bag, Tag smiled a kind smile and the two continued picking up the scattered objects, smiling at the other and hiding their growing blushes.

"Man…have you ever seen such a sappy couple?" Sev asked Red as they watched Tag and Lightlad, Red smirked before he and Sev continued to move towards the exit.

Slack was the first one to exit the building and the first one of the group to officially step into Hallow City. It was dark out, the sky was almost pitch black, with just the light of the lamp posts and star's illuminating the sky, she could see brief glimpses of the moon hidden behind the same building that Blizkid had seen from the plane, the moon light the building's frame up in an eerie way, giving it a bright blue glow that formed the shape of the building.

Slack took a deep breath of fresh air, that's when she noticed the first of many differences about Hallow City, the air, unlike the air in Jump City which was clean and tasted slightly of sea water, the air in Hallow City was more mechanical and almost felt like breathing through a snorkel, and unlike Jump City's sea water tasting air, the air in Hallow City had a distinctive metallic taste to it, though both of these differences wasn't a serious situation, it would just require some time to get used too.

The second difference was the temperature, Jump City had always been known for its hot weather and the fact that it hardly, if ever, snowed, leaving the casual attire to be in the range of shorts and a T-shirt, but in Hallow City the air was colder, cold enough to make wearing shorts and a t-shirt almost unimaginable, the attire was more suited towards Jeans and summer coats.

Soon after the Slack exited the building, the others began flocking out of the revolving door, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and finally Sev, exited the building quickly and each one had a different reaction to both the climate change in Hallow City, Red looked more or less unmoved by the change in temperature, Lightlad shivered slightly, Blizkid comforted his body with his arms and Sev shivered slightly.

"Must be cold in that two piece uh?" Sev asked Tag. Tag, who was standing beside him, shivering slightly and had several dozen goose bumps along her arms, gave him a hard glare which he returned with a sarcastic smile.

"So is this our ride?" Red asked, in front of them sat a large black limousine, the limo had "Titen Pick up" written on the left hand window, it wasn't very inspiring to be picked up in a ride that spelt 'Titan' wrong, this was definitely a sign of things to come.

Suddenly the front door to the limo slammed opened fast and hard, the force practically knocking the door off its hinges, soon after, a short, scrappy looking man dressed in a black outfit including pants, suit and cap came out of the door. He had an unshaven face built up into a small stubble, big bushy eyebrows and possibly, from the lack of sideburns and any other form of hair on his forehead, a completely bald head that was hidden underneath his drivers cap.

"You the Titans?" he asked rudely, his voice carried a thick New York accent that, adding to his small height, made him seem humorous as apposed to serious.

"That'd be us captain" Sev said in his usual sarcastic tone, the driver shot him a dark glance and turned his head towards Slack, who he immediately identified as the leader.

"Well yer' late…twenty minutes late to be exact" he said, his comment directed at Slack as if it were her fault. Again his voice carried a rude tone with it.

"Hey short-stack, we're not paying you to insult us, so if you wouldn't mind how bout givin' us some damn courtesy!" Red said in a tone that could rival a growling grizzly bear.

The driver raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders and made his way around the limo towards the door that they stood in front of.

"There, I opened the door for ya', that courtesy enough? Or would you prefer I carried yer' ass all the way to the seat?" the driver asked rudely, Red gave a low pitched growl and curled his hand into a fist, though this action went unnoticed by the rest of the team.

Slack was getting fed up, not just with the driver, but with having to constantly stop to keep her team in check, she realized it was her job, but they could still show a little more decency for her sake.

"It's fine Sir. How about you just drive us too the tower, please" Slack said. The driver smiled half heartedly, tipped his cap and spoke.

"That's what I like to see, a nice woman with some manners. Right away miss" The driver said, again he tipped his hat in her direction, he closed the door silently and slowly made his way back to the drivers seat.

Slack smiled lightly and stared at Red who had his brows burrowed into a frown, she put a hand on his shoulder, his shoulders slumped downwards and he took a deep breath, it was weird, the one action seemed to change Red's mood drastically.

"It's O.K. Red, not everything has to be solved with violence you know" she said half jokingly and half seriously, Red shrugged his shoulders and turned towards her.

"Maybe your right" he said quietly, again Slack smiled, she could tell that Red was slowly, be it really slowly, opening up, letting his emotions be seen and heard instead of being buried inside himself, something that was good for not only his health but his sanity. Locking things up for too long had a tendency to cause serious psychological problems.

The trunk to the limo opened quickly and swiftly, the other's guessed this was a sign that the driver was tired of waiting around while they chatted, the group moved around to the back of the limo and piled their luggage in the back before Red slammed the trunk shut.

"So…shall we get going?" Tag asked as she stood in front of the open Limo door, Lightlad smiled, this was another one of his 'heart-warming' smiles that Tag seemed to enjoy so much.

"Why not" he said opening the door for her, she smiled at him as she got inside; Lightlad raised both his eyebrows and smirked.

"Ladies first" he said as Red was preparing to go in. Red shot him a glance and got in the car, again Lightlad smirked, soon after the entire team was inside the limo, which was much more comfortable than the seats in the airport.

The inside was decorated exquisitely, the long floor that led from the back seats to the front of the car was covered in a fancy carpeting, there were two TV's, both encased in a wooden frame, a small mini bar, also encased in a wooden frame and a large sunroof.

The seats were made of fine leather, much to the dismay of Tag, who put up quite the fight and fuss about sitting in the chairs, bringing up the subject's of animal torture, murder and abuse. Finally Lightlad calmed her down by telling her that the chairs were made of synthetic leather and that no cute animals were harmed for her to enjoy her seat, she seemed to buy the story and even took a seat beside Lightlad, much to his delight.

The window connecting the driver's seat and the rest of the limo rolled down and the driver poked his head through the small hole, his neck almost getting stuck in the process, he struggled for a minute, in a comical way that was, before he got it free.

"We'll be shippin' off now if you don't mind" he said, the others nodded their head's 'yes', he tipped his hat towards them before removing his head from the opening and rolling up the window.

Slowly they began to feel the car slowly moving; the others relaxed their tense bodies in the comfortable chairs and began to bask in the glory of being a Titan, they could really get used to being treated with such high level of respect.

The ride continued to be relaxing, Sev turned one of the small TV's on and started to watch the same show he, as well as Red and Lightlad, had been watching in the airport, Blizkid and Tag began playing a game of "Eye Spy" with Lightlad watching Tag with an admiring glare.

Red, still tired from a certain lack of sleep, raised his hood over his head and began to slowly feel himself drift off into a calming relaxing sleep when he felt a large object fall on his shoulder, he lowered his hood and stared at what had hit his shoulder, there to his right lay a sleeping Slack, with her sleeping head rested against his right shoulder, Red, not quiet un-enjoying this but still feeling rather uncomfortable, gently put his arm around her shoulder, in return she sleepishly put her right arm on his chest and murmured to herself in her sleep.

For the rest of the ride the teen's remained pretty much the way they were for the moment, Blizkid and Tag stopped playing 'Eye Spy' and instead started playing the 'Waving to Traffic' game, blissfully unaware that the tinted window only allowed for them to see the traffic instead of the other way around, Sev's show had finished soon after the car had started and instead of watching an episode of "The life and times of Krypto 'The super dog'." he switched the channel to a show about a foursome of friends living in an apartment building, meanwhile both Red and Slack remained very much asleep, each one resting on the other in an almost romantic way, had it not been for the short time period in which they knew each other most would think it was that way also.

Finally the car came to a stop, the front window again rolled down and again the driver stuck his head out, this time his rude angry face was replaced with what looked like a happy and almost glee filled face.

"Here we are, Titan's Tower: Hallow City….hope you enjoyed the ride…and don't forget to leave your driver a big fat tip" he said giddily, the others wern't paying any attention to him and competely missed his tip encouragement, much to his dismay.

In the back of the limo, Sev turned his head around, he saw Red and Slack in their current position and couldn't help but smile sheepishly, he raised his metallic arm and using his human hand slipped off a small flat semi-circular piece of his arm, that upon closer inspection, would reveal the device to be a small camera.

"Say cheese" he said as he raised it to his left eye, he pushed his index finger on a small nudge of metal that stuck out an inch from the camera, the camera made a 'Click' like noise and Sev smiled, he now had the proper evidence to blackmail the two should the need ever arise, sliding the piece of technology back into it's respective holder he nudged Slack's left arm then Red's head, both woke up slowly and stared at the other before Slack turned away and attempted to hide the blush that was building up on her face.

From where he was sitting, Lightlad tapped Tag on the shoulder, she spun around gracefully and faced him face-to-face, for a quick second he felt extremely weak in her presence, but that soon passed when he saw the childlike smile on her face.

"We should get going" he suggested, she nodded and he offered her his hand, she accepted it and he raised her body towards his, behind her Blizkid used the coat hanger above his head to raise his body upwards.

Sev opened the door and walked out, after him came Tag, Lightlad, Blizkid, Red and finally a no longer blushing but still shy Slack who closed the door behind her as she exited the limo.

The group grabbed their bags from the trunk, Lightlad had to help Tag with hers because they were 'too heavy' for her to carry, though he didn't seem to mind, in fact, to the untrained eye it looked as if he was enjoying it.

Behind the group, the driver, seeing the group uninterested in him or his tip, cursed colourfully and drove off down the long empty street that led towards the tower, his destination was back to the airport to pick up his next client.

The group stared in silence at the awe inspiring sight in front of their eyes, the Titan tower, _their_ Titan tower was like nothing they had seen before.

The Tower itself stood within the base of a tall mountain that overlooked all of Hallow City, the roof of the tower was attached to the top of the mountain, giving it the perfect view of the entire city below it as well as the stars above it, down at the bottom of the small piece of land where the tower stood sat a large pond that acted as a sort of moat around the tower, with a large bridge connecting the sidewalk to the other side of the tower. Past the bridge was a small series of bushes that led all the way to the door of the tower, each one was shaped like a 'T' and had what looked like roses attached to them.

"Wow…they really weren't holding back when it came to designing this place" Sev said as he stood in front of the bridge.

The bridge itself had a small panel attached to it, there was a small glass covered button labelled "Emergency Raise/Lower" as well as lift and lowering buttons attached to the top of it.

The group crossed the bridge silently, making note of the several blue and red coloured fish that inhabited the small moat around the tower, this was like living a dream. It was everything anyone on the group could have possibly wanted from the tower and more.

Finally the group stood in front of the two large white and black trimmed metal doors that led to the inside of the tower, the doors were heavily polished, giving each member a perfect reflection of themselves, aside from the white tint in colour that was.

To the right of the door stood a small triangular panel, the panel had a small keypad on it as well as two small light bulbs, one green and the other red, above the keypad and lights was a small docking station, above that was a small illustration of a Titan Communicator being placed on the station.

Slack seemed to get what the picture was implying, she reached her left hand onto her utility belt and grabbed her yellow communicator, she placed it on the small docking station which caused a 'click-clock' noise, suddenly her communicator screen light up with a bright white glow and a voice from the speaker said.

"Hello….Slack. Please enter your entry code on the keypad below, the code is of your choice and must be no longer than four digits long, please make sure to tell your team-mates the code when you are done, they will need it in order to get in the tower" A mechanical voice from her speaker said, Slack placed her right hand over the small keypad and pushed her fingers down four times on four different keys.

"Thank you…Slack, you're code is: 2.1.1.2., please remember to tell your Team mates the code that is all" The communicator said before the screen went black and a "Clock-Click" noise was heard as the communicator unattached itself from the dock.

Slack grabbed her communicator with her right hand and brought it down to her utility belt, where she reattached it to it's respective click holder, she placed her now empty, right hand on the keypad and entered '2-1-1-2' on the key pad, the green light, light up and the door's opened slowly.

"Whoa" was all Sev could manage to say as he and the others gazed inwards at their new home.

The opened door revealed a long hallway that led to an elevator at the end of it, this may not have seemed awe inspiring to many, but the symmetrical design of the hallway, with both walls being made of the same light white coloured metal as the outside and the long red carpet that led to the elevator made up for the otherwise uselessness of the room.

The group proceeded down the hallway slowly, taking time to admire themselves in the refection of the wall. Finally after what seemed like ages to the group, they stood before the elevator. The two doors that led to the inside were made of the same metal that the walls were, to the right of the doors was a small wall-imprinted keypad with several small round buttons, though unlike a normal elevator's buttons, these ones had names instead of numbers, some of the many names read: Roof, Gym, Pool, Kitchen, Rooms and Lavatory. Though these were just some of the over a dozen of the buttons.

"Man this place kicks ass" Sev said pressing the button labelled "Rooms", a button that once pushed light up with a bright yellow glow.

The others stood in silence, awaiting the elevator, Sev lightly hummed to himself and Red kept shifting the weight of his body from leg to leg, this went on for a short while before the group heard a slight mechanical hum coming from the elevator shaft, soon after they heard a quick and mechanical hiss and finally the two elevator doors opened to reveal a large elevator, roughly twenty feet wide and long.

The group walked in to the elevator silently, not so much as a single word was spoken by any of them. Once inside, Slack pressed a button on the wall mounted keypad; this action caused a loud mechanical hum to be heard as the elevator was slowly lifted off the ground and began its slow trek upwards.

The group stood in silence as they waited for the elevator to finish its upwards trip, above their heads a rendition of "Don't Worry be Happy" played over the speaker and Sev couldn't help but hum along, the group stared at.

"What? I like this song" He said in his defence, the others slowly turned their heads back towards the front of the elevator, it seemed to be traveling of speeds that were inhumanly slow, like it was being dragged upwards by an army of snails.

"Don't worry…be happy…something, something, something else…da-da-da-da…be happy" Sev sang along, Lightlad rolled his eyes at his team-mates aloofness, not knowing the words was one thing, but Sev was just butchering the song with his lack of knowledge towards the lyrics.

The slow upwards ascent continued for a short while longer before the elevator finally came to a halt, the doors slid open to reveal a long hallway that split two ways at the end, making it look somewhat like a 'Y'. At the beginning and end of both split hallways were large handle less door's, each had a triangular keypad in place of a door handle. As there were two rooms on each side of the hallway, making the total amount of rooms eight, six rooms for them and two 'guest' bedrooms.

The group, led by Slack, walked down the hallway, dragging their luggage behind them, they stopped at the fork in the road and stared at their different options. Both sides seemed equal, aside from the fact that the last room on both the farthest left and farthest right side were significantly smaller than the others.

Red was the first to pick his room, he walked down the left hallway towards the last room, the large duffle bag tossed over his left shoulder, he stopped in front of the door and hit the '#' button and a tiny mechanical voice came from the speaker.

"Please create four digit password" It said, Red, using his right index finger he typed the numbers "1-9-7-8" on the keypad, this prompted the small screen to light green and the voice to speak again.

"Thank you" the mechanical voice said as the door opened, Red peered into his room, it was practically fully equipped, there was a nice army style bed with blue and white sheets, a large wooden desk with a computer attached to it, a bathroom to the right of the door and small table with a duo of chairs attached to the back room of the wall, Red was liking this, liking it a lot.

Blizkid took the room next door to Red's, aside from the size difference in the room's, Blizkid's was nearly twelve feet bigger than Red's which made it more spacious and open, the rooms were designed exactly the same and were both fully equipped the same.

Slack took up occupancy in the room directly across the hall from Blizkid's, her room, like Blizkid's, was large and open, with the same exact furniture as both of the other members.

In the right part of the split hallway Sev, Lightlad and Tag took up residence, Tag took the farthest room to the left side, beside her was Lightlad's room, it was no accident that the two were 'neighbours, as Lightlad went twelve rounds of Rock-Paper-Scissors with Sev for the rights to the room, by the twelfth game, Sev, getting tired of winning to Lightlad, gave him the room and took the room across the hall from him.

The group spent some time unpacking their possessions into their individual living quarters, Lightlad finished unpacking relatively quickly and helped Tag unpack, commenting on how her room would get "The perfect glance of the sun rising", though this seemed to be more of a way for him to flirt with her than actual care for the sun. Red was done unpacking in a matter of minutes and, being bored from a lack of 'things to do' decided to help with Blizkid then Slack's unpacking, Sev, having very little to unpack, decided to get acquainted with the technology of the tower, he spent his time hardwiring his own laptop along with the complementary computer and any other electrical devices he had at his disposal to the security station, that just so happened to be located in his room, allowing him full security access to the entire tower, now, should they ever be attacked, he'd be in full control of the security, though he didn't activate his new device, he was going to make sure he had full approval of both his leader and team-mates before he made executive decisions.

Finally, after roughly an hour, Slack and the others were finished unpacking, the time was now Eleven thirty at night, another half an hour and Slack would be completely drained of energy. She had what she liked to call a "Internal Clock" which decided when she woke, napped and called it quits, her 'clock' woke her up everyday at Eight in the morning giving her a eight hours of sleep, it wasn't great but it wasn't bad.

She walked sleepishly towards her walk in closet attached to the corner of her room, she had a long day ahead of her tomorrow and she had to make sure she was prepared for it, she slowly undressed, taking off her utility belt and hanging it up on a small rack, then her costume and hunk it up on a coat hanger, she replaced her costume with a pair of white cotton pajama pants and matching shirt, she walked out of the closet and headed towards her bed. Once there she fell face first onto the bed, too tired to cover her body with the sheets, she curled up into a comfortable position and slowly drifted off to sleep, tomorrow was going to be an exciting and eventfull day.

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Well that's Chapter Five for you, Chapter Six should be up soon (Sooner than five that is) due to the fact that It's practically half of a half way done, so expect a update soon...er, Now for some Trivia. 

This chapter took the shortest while to write out of all of the chapters, it only took me about three and a half weeks including, breaks, school, work and yada-yada-yada.

The Limo Driver was supposed to be a Danny DeVito like character (Though I'm sure I really missed the nail on this one), so if he seems familiar (I don't know how he would...I'm just saying) that's why.

The T.V. show's Sev watches are all references to other shows, The Puppet Show is supposed to be a reference to the disturbing puppet show that's frequently shown on Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Extreme Teen's was made as a sort of parody of both The Teen Titans and show's that try to 'Cool Out' their characters, though the latter is less apparent in this chapter (But don't worry, I'm not done with The Extreme Teens yet), also it's a slight parody "Wormhole Extreme" a show within a show on Stargate SG-1 (Sorry if that sounded nerdy), 'Cooking With Elzar Bam' is a reference to Elzar the alien chef in Futurama and his catchphrase "Bam!", 'The Life and Times of Krypto the Super dog' is a reference to the awful new Krypto show on the air (or maybe it's cancelled).

The Song Sev listens to is "Booty-Butt-Cheeks" a song by fictional rapper Gangstalicious in the show The Boondocks, I thaught I'd add it for kicks to the fans of that show who might so happen to read this chapter.

Slack's code 2112 is a reference to the Song/Album 2112 by Rush (One of my favourite bands) and Red's code 1978 is a reference to the year that both Groucho Marx (One of my favourite actor's) and Elvis Presley (One of the best singer's of all time) died, (Elvis Three days after Groucho...creepy huh?)

"Don't Worry Be Happy" playing in the elevator is a reference to a scene in the new (and awful) Dawn Of The Dead remake. (I put it in for kicks and nothing else)

Since this is a Two-Parter, I included some things that may not make sense unless you read part 2 (Which isn't out yet) these things include the large blue building that both Blizkid and Slack stare in awe at and...well that sums it up actually, but if theres any thing else that doesn't make sense in this chapter, It'll probabbly be solved next chapter..unless it isn't, in which case it'll never be solved (I'm kidding of course)

Next Chapter: Our heroes face their first day in Hallow City and learn that Hallow City may need more help then they can give as they face off against two impending dangers, the first is Biogen, a genetics company that happens to be Hallow City's number one source of income but Biogen has a less than noble agenda when if comes to their experiments, Biogen also happen to be led by a man who has various ties to Hallow City's seedy underworld. Their second problem lies in one such tie, a gang of vicious street teens called The Reapers who are led by a group of super powered teens with their minds set on not just beating the Titans but destroying them.


	6. Chapter 6: Day One: Part 1

Summary: Follow the adventures of Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and Sev members of the newly organized Teen Titans H.C defending Hallow City from the perilous dangers it faces day-in-day-out. They'll have to face an assorted array of villains including, A psychotic gang lead by a team of super powered teens, a deadly bounty hunter with a mysterious link to one of the Titans, a bloodthirsty werewolf willing to turn any one in his way into a midnight snack and a multi billion dollar genetics corporation that's not all that it seems to be, to name a few. But their most dangerous threats come from facing and overcoming each others assorted pasts as a team. Expect tons of guest appearances by the original Titans as well as other D.C. Comics heroes and villains.

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Welcome back Ladies an' Gent's, Like before I'll be your host for this chapter (as well as all others previous and upcoming) and would like to take the time to welcome you all to a New Year (Of chapters that is) and hope that you all had a fun and productive winter break. Now that that's out of the way let's get to some fun shall we? 

As alway's I'll take the next five hundred to a thousand words to give you an up-to-date list of things goin' down in my 'hood' (did I say that right? I'm not to Up-To-Date with these Hip Hop trends)

First off, I'd like to apoligize for any confusion reggarding the fact that last chapter I said it was a two parter (at the time that chapter was too long and I thought I'd have to break it into two's but as it turns out it wasn't) instead this chapter and the next one will be the two parters, meaning that last chapter was a completely seperate chatpter. Just clearing things up in case any of you were confused.

Secondly, a formal apology to Splint (as well as anyone else) whose/who have been waiting paitently for action. This chapter was way too long to fit into one chapter (Hence the Two-Parter) so I had to break it up into two different chapters, Part two is going through some major edits, rewrites and finishing touches and should be posted sometime in the next couple of days...or weeks.

Thirdly, reggarding the length of this chapter. This chapter went through the most dramatic amount of changes, edits, tweeks and other crap, of all the chapters combined. The first draft for this chapter alone had twelve thousand words and that was only half done, so I had to cut tons of crap out which brings me to...

...Fourthly, This chapter (as I said above) went through more than thirteen edits, which include me cutting more than five thousand words from it, so proggression in this chapter will be choppy and fast paced, I apoligize for the crappiness that is this chapter but I just couldn't include everything I wanted into it, so yeah...it's a peice of crap just to let you know.

Fifthly, I picked up a new "Show Of The Month" (Over There didn't last that long), This time Instead of a psychologically disturbing and emotionally stressing drama I found a 'fun for the whole family' comedy series The Office (The U.S. version that is), the reason I bring this up...there is no reason, this has nothing to do with this chapter I just thought I'd let you know.

Sixthly, During one of my late night 'writers block removing' sessions, while I was taking time to listen to "Rescue Me" and switching between, playing Viva Pinata (Great game) and watching The Hills Have Eyes Remake (Decent movie) I came up with a great idea...What If this was a real animated Series? (How I got that Idea is beyond me), which brought me to my next Idea, who would do the Theme Song and what would it be, well here are some of the many names that made the list. "In The City" by Joe Walsh, "Welcome To The Jungle" by Guns N' Roses and "Never Gonna Stop" by Rob Zombie. If you have a suggestion for a theme song please feel free to include it in your review (This is for fun not for any prize or anything).

Seventhly (Damn theres a lot of them this chapter arn't there), I made a huge mistake last chapter, at the time I wrote Lavatory as one of the floors thinking Lavatory meant "Lounge" (Don't ask me why) and kept that idea untill halfway through this chapter when I looked it up on the internet, So if theres any mentions of a "Lavatory" it means "Lounge" just to tell you. Also Last chapter I said there was a seperate kitchen floor...well ignore that the kitchen is part of the lounge now (It just worked better for the story if I molded the two into a 'super-lounge'.)

Finally.A Disclaimer: I do not own The Teen Titans or any other D.C. owned characters or places that might or might not be mentioned in this chapter or story all rights belong to D.C. Comics and not myself. What I do own are, The Heroes, Slack, Red, Blizkid, Sev, Tag and Lightlad as well as Hallow City, Biogen Corporation and all other non-D.C. Comic owned characters appearing in this chapter.

Now then...let's start the show.

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Chapter 6: Day One  
Part 1: Biogen 

Slack opened her eyes slowly; she felt a series of soft objects brush gently against her cheek, she immediately rubbed them away with her right hand which revealed the objects to be strands of her hair that had rubbed against her cheek during her slumber. She frowned, she'd been woken up by mere strands of hair which upset her as she was having a nice dream, one which she hadn't wished to be awakened from. Slowly she got off of the bed, having spent the night without covers she didn't need to toss them off or make the bed for the matter.

She stood up beside her bed, slowly stretched her arms upwards and yawned quietly, making sure to cover her mouth afterwards, although she wasn't in the presence of any others, she'd been taught that it was polite to have manners and that lesson had dragged on with her throughout her life.

She glanced at her cat shaped alarm clock which read '7:30' on the cat's two cartoony eyes. She'd gotten up a half hour earlier than she normally did, this was a good sign as it meant she had more time to prepare for the coming day ahead of her.

She walked towards the left hand corner of her room where a small bathroom stood; It was a small room, roughly a quarter of the size of her own room, the walls coated with white tiles and the floor was made of a hard material, most likely marble.

In one corner of her bathroom stood a small glass shower, in the corner opposite the shower lay a small bathtub made of similar material to that of the floor, the last two objects in the room were relatively normal, a small sink made of the same material as the bath tub, the final object was a flat metal box shaped object attached to the wall that separated the bath and the shower, the object had a small circular handle atop it and "Laundry Shoot" written above it.

She undressed herself and grabbed two towels off the small towel rack that stood above the sink, she grabbed her clothes in one hand and scooped them up into her right arm, she gently grabbed the handle bar to the laundry shoot with her free hand, pulled it open and tossed her laundry down, it fell silently down the shoot, making as little noise as a 'swish' as it fell; she'd have to designate a member of her team to collect the laundry later.

Slowly she walked into the shower, tossing both towels over the top so that they balanced halfway between the inside and outside of the shower. She positioned the shower head to directly above her body using her right hand, using her left she turned one of two nozzles attached to the bottom of the showerhead, suddenly her body was being assaulted by thousands of drops of warm water, she relaxed her body in the continuous stream of warm water and reached for the shampoo.

Ten minutes later Slack walked out of her bathroom with two towels attached to her body, one towel was wrapped gently around her chest and the other wrapped around her long hair. she stopped for a moment, began drying herself off before she decided what to do next.

She walked slowly into her small walk-in closet and quickly tossed on her undergarments; she stood for a moment and prepared to collect her clothes for the day. On the farthest wall of the closet stood a tall wall mounted coat rack in which three of her costumes hung, she grabbed a fresh costume off the coat rack, quickly unzipped the back and slipped it over her skin. She'd worn the costume so many times that without feeling it over her skin she felt almost naked.

Next she moved towards the left wall of her closet where a small cage like object stood against the wall, inside the cage her utility belt hung from a small shelf like pair of stands, to the right of the belt were the accompanying gadgets. To the right of the 'cage' was a second 'cage' this one was smaller than the one which held her belt and had two rows of shelves, each one was stacked with her replacement gadgets.

Slack tossed the belt around her waist with her right hand, it dangled in the air for a split second before she caught it with her left hand, she snapped the belt into place before reaching both arms towards the wall, she then proceeded to grab the necessary supplies off the wall and began loading them into her belt, each one fit into a specific metal pouch on her belt, just as they were designed to.

Soon after she'd finished dressing she walked out of her room, making sure to toss both towels down the laundry shoot first. She pressed a small button on the door's keypad labeled "Close", the door slid closed behind her silently, making a "Whish" sound as it did, she smiled at it's efficient soundlessness of the door, had it been loud she surely would have woken up the others.

She stopped for a moment to think, she had at least a half of an hour before any of the others began to wake up and at least a full hour before they were ready to start their day, that was assuming of course they woke up at Eight thirty like she expected them too, if they didn't she'd have to enforce it on them, not harshly but with enough force that they understood that Eight Thirty was the wake up time.

Still thinking about what she could do with her time, she came to a conclusion, she was still unfamiliar with the tower, so she'd spend some time navigating the different levels, getting familiar with the place, it had helped her in the past and it would help her now.

As she walked towards the elevator she thought about what floor she'd visit first, there was a lounge, or as she liked to think of it, a 'hang-out', but she didn't really want to go there alone, it would be not only uncomfortable but awkward for her, there was a pool somewhere, but that too would be awkward without at least another person there, there was also a gym somewhere below the floor, that seemed like a good idea as she could get familiar with the equipment she'd be training with. She stepped inside the elevator and clicked the white button labelled "Gym" slowly the elevator started up and began its down wards travel.

When the door opened she saw, much to her surprise, Red, dressed in a pair of loose blue jeans, a black muscle shirt and a pair of tip less gloves attached to his palms. He stood in front of a large red punching bag that hung from the roof of the room; it was supported by a series of thick metal chains that looked to be made of a thick material.

Red beat the bag with a series of hard punches, one after another each punch landed with a mix of grace and furry, knocking the punching bag backwards fiercely.

Slack watched him for a while, admiring the way his body moved with each punch, she quickly tried to shake that thought out of her mind, there was no way she just thought about him like that, he was her team mate and friend not a crush…then again he wasn't _that_ bad.

Finally after she shook the idea from her head she began to walk towards him slowly, unsure if disturbing him was such a good idea, he looked completely devoted to assaulting the punching bag, like it was some sort of obstacle in his way and he was incomplete without removing it.

"Isn't it a little early to be training?" She asked from behind, her voice carried a small sense of admiration with it.

Red delivered one final strong punch to the center of the bag, knocking it backwards strongly, it waved through the air fiercely before finally flying backwards towards him, he placed both his hands on the bag to stop it's movement, when he was sure it would no longer move he released his grasp on the bag and strolled across the floor towards a small wooden table where a towel and a bottle of water stood; he grabbed the towel with his right hand and wiped his face clean of any sweat.

As he finished wiping the sweat off his face, he removed the towel and stared at her with a smile on his face, this was one of the few times she had ever seen him truly smile, most times it was a smirk or a grin, but this was a honest to goodness, joy filled smile.

"It's never too early" he said, Slack smiled, there was something about Red, she couldn't put her finger on it but he just had 'it', sure he could be forceful at times, rude, violent and callous were also words that could describe his personality, but despite all this Slack still found a certain level of charm underneath the layer of anger he wore.

"So what brings you down here?" he asked as he swung the towel around the back of his neck, Slack smiled.

"I got up early and thought maybe I'd look around" Slack said, Red nodded his head lightly, as if he were making a mental note of what she'd just said, though Slack saw no reason he would.

Suddenly the noise of the elevator doors opening was heard, both teens turned their head towards the elevator to see what the disturbance was, they saw Lightlad's head poking through the doors, he saw the two looked somewhat surprised.

"I'm not interrupting something am I?" He asked in a surprised tone, it was odd to him that he should find the two of them together like this, whatever 'this' was,

Slack blushed and Red looked at him with a mix of worry and anger, the same face he'd given him the day they met at the airport.

"No" Both of them said in unison, Lightlad smirked; he now knew exactly what was going on.

"Right, well the others are up and in the lounge in case you were wondering, I think Sev's making breakfast" Sev said as he pulled his head back into the elevator, the doors closed slowly, leaving the two teens alone in the room.

"You ever notice when we have a moment he ruins it?" Red asked, Slack blushed at his nonchalant use of the word 'moment', she tried hiding her blush with a slight nod of her head.

"Well, I'm gonna take a shower, see if you can save me some of whatever Sev's making" He said as he grabbed both his towel and water bottle off the table and started walking towards a corner of the room where a tall metal door stood, as Red reached the door it opened with the same 'whish' like noise that the other doors did, inside the door Slack could see two set of stairs, one set led upwards and the other downwards, Red walked up the upwards stairs and the door closed behind him.

As soon as she was sure Red had exited the ear length area she let out a loud groan, not a pain filled groan, but a angst filled one, the angst coming from the fact that she'd practically turned to jelly in front of him, it wasn't like he was good looking….well aside from the red skin and tail he was sort of good looking….wait she didn't just think that...did she?

She took a deep breath in, swallowed and headed towards the elevator, thinking along the way about what it was about Red that made her feel so….so…weird.

Stepping inside the elevator she pressed the button labelled "Lounge", the doors closed slowly, she took another breath in, she had to get control of herself, no one wanted a school girl to lead their team, they wanted a tough-as-nails, split second decision making super hero, she released the air in her lungs, that's what she had to be, a strong willed superhero.

The doors to the elevator opened and allowed Slack her first glance at the lounge, it was a larger room, which was brightly light, due, in part, to the large back wall which was one big window, the room was heavily carpeted with only a corner section of the room having a wooden floor, in that section of the room stood a small kitchen, the kitchen was equipped with the casual stove supplies, stove, oven, microwave, fridge, sink and cupboards, though each one was coated in the same metal as the walls of the tower, giving each piece a 'futuristic' look. In the middle of the kitchen stood Sev, with two large frying pans infront of him, he was wearing a large white chef's hat in place of his usual knit beanie and a large white apron that read "Iron Chef" on it, he smiled as he saw Slack walk into the room.

Directly in front of where Slack stood was a large TV, almost half the size of a regular movie theatre screen, attached to the to the left of the TV was a hardwood cabinet that housed several dozen small box sized machines, all of which were hooked up to the TV in some way. Slack recognised some of the machines, they were all different entertainment devices, DVD players, video game stations, video recording devices, every piece of TV technology was there and accounted for.

To the right of the small kitchen and to the left of the TV stood a large dining table, the table was at least twelve feet across and two to three feet wide and had a dozen tall chairs surrounding it. The table was made of black metal and had a large and long glass window stationed in the middle of it, the chairs were made of the same material as the table, though they lacked the glass window that the table had.

Blizkid and Lightlad sat on the circular couch that surrounded the TV, each teen had a controller in their hands and a gaze focused solely on there video game characters, to Lightlad's right was Tag, she too watched the screen, be it absent mind-idly, Tag turned her head from the onscreen carnage and caught a glimpse of Slack, she smiled her usual optimistic smile.

"Hello Slack" she called out and waved gently towards her, Slack smiled at this friendly gesture.

From where they were sitting, both Lightlad and Blizkid turned their heads towards her, Lightlad, recalling what he'd seen in the gym, smirked and turned back towards the TV, Blizkid dropped his controller on the floor, much to the dismay of Lightlad, who'd wished to beat Blizkid at least once during their small video game brawl.

"Hi Slack" He greeted as he approached her, a cheery, childish smile on his face, Slack couldn't help but smile at his boyish innocence, she patted him on the head softly, messing up his hair in the process, though he didn't seem to mind, instead taking it as a compliment.

"Ladies and germs, breakfast is served" Sev's voices called out from the kitchen, suddenly all eyes were on him. He held two metal frying pans in his hands; each pan had a pair of eggs inside them, he placed both frying pans on the no longer light stove and opened one of the drawers above his right knee, pulling out a small metal spatula, he inserted the spatula under the first egg and gently pulled it upwards, taking the egg with it, Lightlad approached him, a metal plate in his hands and cutlery in his left hand, Sev smiled and slid the egg onto the plate, next came Tag, she put her plate in front of her and smiled at him, Sev placed the spatula under a completely white egg and gently flipped it onto her plate.

"One tofu egg for our resident Vegetarian" he said with a smile, she too smiled and thanked him gracefully for the eggs and took a spot at the table beside Lightlad

Next up was Blizkid, he placed his plate on the hard metal counter, Sev lifted one of the eggs of the pan and slid it onto his plate gently, Blizkid thanked him, grabbed his plate with one hand and rushed over to where Tag and Lightlad were sitting.

"Last eggs for you Slack" he said flipping the last egg onto a plate to his side, Slack smiled politely and took the plate.

"Aren't you eating?" she asked, Sev smirked, though this wasn't a rude smirk, more of a casual smile sort of smirk.

"You're kidding right, eggs? They've got too many calories for me…nope I'm gonna stick to my good ol' healthy bacon if you don't mind" he said as he walked towards the fridge, Slack smiled again and took a seat across from Lightlad's.

Sev opened a package of bacon and placed six strips inside the pan, he began to fry his bacon while humming the tune of "Welcome to the jungle" to himself, he spun the pan slightly, causing a series of crackling noises to be heard.

Suddenly a quiet 'whish' noise interrupted the silence in the room as all eyes were suddenly drawn to the elevator where Red stood in the open doorway. He was dressed in a fresh pair of grey jeans with several sheathes wrapped around the leg's, a light black muscle shirt with his "R" insignia on it and the same jacket he'd worn at the airport, the three elements that made up his 'costume'.

"Breakfast?" he asked as he walked towards the kitchen, his eyes on the pan of bacon in front of him, Sev smirked.

"Yeah, mine" he said flipping the bacon out of the pan with the spatula, each piece flew through the air fiercely, leaving drops of grease trailing behind them, before they landed perfectly on Sev's plate.

Red reached onto his forehead where several drops of grease had landed, he grinned at Sev who shrugged his shoulders before taking a seat next to Slack, Red frowned and wiped away the grease on his forehead with a paper towel he'd grabbed off the counter.

"Guess I'm makin' my own breakfast" he said coldly, his comment directed at Sev who sat eating his bacon tauntingly.

"Guess so" Sev said before rubbing his stomach "M-m-m-m, deee-licious".

"I'll make you something" Blizkid said getting up from his spot and rushing over to where Red stood, Red smiled at his eagerness.

"It's O.K. kid, I've learned that you make the bed you lay in" he said reaching for the fridge door, he grabbed several packages of bacon, tore them open with his bare hands and turned on the stove.

Several minutes passed before Red had finished preparing his meal, which consisted of, eight strips of bacon, two pieces of toast and four eggs. He sat down at the head of the table and stabbed his fork into the first piece of bacon.

"How can you eat that?" Tag said with a disgusted face, Red rolled his eyes, hoping she wasn't going to start the whole 'Animals are our friends not food' routine again, he finished chewing his piece of bacon before clearing his throat and speaking.

"On the farm its survival of the fittest…and I guess pigs just don't have what it takes" Red said stabbing a second piece of bacon with his fork.

"I meant how can you eat that much…won't you have a heart attack or something?" she asked, Lightlad smirked, he was imagining what it would be like if he did have a heart attack.

"I have a high metabolism, I burn triple the fat a normal person would burn in a day every four hours" Red said stabbing two pieces of bacon with his fork before putting them in his mouth, he chewed them thoroughly, swallowed and reached for a piece of toast.

"If I didn't eat this much I'd slowly start to die" he said taking a bite of the toast, Tag looked worriedly at Red, she didn't realise that he might die if he didn't eat, she didn't think it was that serious.

"So, like if you missed dinner…you'd wake up dead?" Sev asked from his spot at the table.

"Let's not worry about it" Red said finishing the last piece of toast, the others sat in silence for a minute before Lightlad, Tag and Blizkid started clearing their plates, Sev and Slack followed shortly after and finally Red.

The rest of the morning progressed slowly, Red and Blizkid spent their time playing video games, Sev, having gotten permission from Slack, began constructing a "Crime Computer" that would help them track down criminals; Tag was finishing decorating her room with the help of an overly eager Lightlad and Slack was busy finishing up her inspection of the Tower, getting used to the different rooms they'd be using from time to time.

At Twelve thirty Sev came rushing from the elevator, he leapt over the couch, using his metallic arm to sturdy his body and landed in-between Blizkid and Red, he grabbed the remote off the table and aimed it at the TV, he flipped through the channels, much to the dismay of Red and Blizkid who were in the middle of a video game.

"I don't know if you noticed but we were kind of playing a game here" Red said coldly, Blizkid sighed and using his game controller turned off the console, guess he'd have to wait another day to see who was better at 'Thirst 4 Blood'.

"Yeah, yeah I'm real sorry but this just so happens to be important" Sev said sarcastically as he flipped through dozens of channels before stopping on a news channel, much to the dismay of both Blizkid and Red who hated being interupted esspecially for a news broadcast.

Onscreen a sharply dressed female reporter with bright blonde hair stood in a large white office, to her right was a man, a few inches shorter then herself, with short clean cut greyish silver hair, a short goatee on his face and deep blue eyes, the man was dressed dark blue suit with a white undershirt and a striped red tie. As he talked with the reporter he held his arms behind his back, it was a somewhat weird gesture that the others couldn't understand the meaning of.

"Now that the Titans have arrived in Hallow City what are you're company's plans to cooperate with them?" the reporter asked, the man smiled and pulled one of his arms from behind him, raising it to his mouth. Clutched in-between his index and middle finger was a large brown cigar, he put the cigar to his lips, puffed once and slowly moved his arm back behind his body.

"As I've said in press conferences, I hope to work closely with our cities heroes allowing them as much help as they need, after all, We here at Biogen are all about helping those in need" The man said with a fake care filled voice.

By this time the entire team had gathered around the TV, each one stopping what it was they were doing previously in order to get a better view of the screen,

"What is your response to the allegation that your company is responsible for the creation of dangerous illegal substances as well as the multiple reports of illegal genetics research?" The reporter asked, the man smiled, a sort of 'I know something you don't' smile.

"Mrs. Soho. As president of Biogen it's my duty to ensure the safety of not only my workers but my consumers, we would never create a life threatening substances nor do we create potentially dangerous chemicals or compounds, as for the reports of our 'illegal' genetics research it's all just rumours started by a bunch of kids with to much time on there hands. Now I'm sorry for the inconvenience but I have a meeting to get too" the man said walking away from the camera, The camera turned to face the reporter who then appoligized to the reviewer for the unexpected absence.

"What's Biogen?" Blizkid asked, Red shrugged his shoulder as a form of saying "I don't know" and Sev clicked off the TV with the remote.

"From the looks of things I'd say it's some kind of research lab…like Xynocks Industry" Sev said. The others knew of Xynocks Industry, it was a research building which made and mass produced cures to hundreds of deseases, there claim to fame was both in creating a cure to a deadly flu that effected most of Jump City during the early 90's and the creation of the substance known as Xenothium used to power the Red X suit that both Robin and the current Red X wore.

"Since when do we need help?" Red asked with his usual cold toned voice, the others shrugged their shoulders.

"We may not need the help but that doesn't mean we should waste it, we should see what it's all about and maybe give them a chance, besides the more help the merrier right?" Slack asked.

"So what...we just give em' a call? Cause I don't think that's very professional of us" Lightlad said, sarcasm playing off his tone, the others frowned at him, even Tag which upset him slightly.

"Actually, that is the plan" Slack said, Lightlad's frown only grew as the others smiled, at the moment he felt extremely small compared to the others, though he said nothing about it, instead keeping his mouth shut should he make another sarcastic comment that could be easily back fired on him.

Slack reached into her utility belt and grabbed her yellow communicator with her right hand, it snapped off it's holder with a silent 'click'. She then brought it upwards and handed it to Sev who accepted it with both hands.

"Can you program this to reach Biogen?" she asked, Sev smiled.

"Can I program it to reach Biogen? Does Robin look like he uses a dangerous amount of hair gel on a daily basis?" he joked, the others smiled lightly, true it wasn't one of his funnier jokes but at least he was trying.

"I'll be back in a flash" He said rushing to the elevator, the others waited silently on the couch, not saying much more than a word or two at a time, their eyes jumping from person to person as they waited for Sev's return.

"So…how bout them Yankees?" Lightlad asked sarcastically in an attempt to break the un-easy silence in the room, again his comment was met with frowns and rolled eyes, Lightlad frowned and sank into his seat.

Five minutes later Sev came rushing through the stairwell door, practically slamming into it on his way through, a smile was placed on his face as he held the communicator in his hand, he stopped in front of Slack, handed her the device and smiled.

"All taken care of boss" he said taking a breath, running up multiple flights of stairs had taken its toll on him as he was now out of breath, he relaxed on the couch and continued his rapid breathing.

"So…what's happening?" Lightlad asked from his spot on the couch, Sev took another breath in, sat up and looked at Lightlad before speaking.

"I talked to one of their rep's, he said he could get us in by Two for a chat with the boss, he said that the boss, Mr. Hoffman, would have a nice little chat with us" Sev said with a smile.

"Two?" Slack asked looking at the clock attached to the top of the oven, the clock read '1:24' with large red numbers.

"Yep Two O' Clock, so without sounding too intruding I'd say we should get going, I hear traffics a bitch out there" Sev said with a wide smirk, the others looked at Slack who nodded her head in agreement to Sev's idea of leaving the tower.

Slack nodded and headed towards the elevator, the others got off the couch, Red turning the TV off as he did, got to their feet and followed after Slack.

The team piled into the elevator quietly, Red stood in the back, Sev in front of him, Tag to his left, Blizkid beside her and Slack at the front, gently Slack pressed the single square button on the keypad, this button, unlike the others, glew a bright red fluorescent glow.

The elevator slowly reached past the bottom floors of the tower, going deep through the level of earth they called 'land' and slowly reaching deep underneath the earth. The elevator continued to travel farther underground, Slack guessed they were at least sixty feet underground by this point. Finally the elevator came to a halt and the doors opened to reveal a dark, damp and noticeably empty garage.

A small control panel hung from the ceiling, it being one of the few things that were light up by the light of the elevator, the other two being a small red workbench and a foursome of tires which sat against a caged wall. Red grabbed the panel and pressed down on the big red button on the center of it, slowly one by one the lights light up, each one was accompanied by a mechanical "Clang".

"And God said "Let there be light" and there was light" Red said as the last light finished lighting up, giving full view to the large garage, it was a large empty room at least forty feet wide and tall, the ground was made of a hard concrete like material and the walls were open and gave exposure to the hard rock that surrounded the garage, with only a large grid like cage acting as a means of support encase of a earthquake, the roof was at least forty feet above their heads and had large florescent lights hanging down to at least twenty feet, these lights giving the room the it's only light.

At the farthest end of the room was a large ramp which looked to lead to the outside of the tower, judging by this and the fact that there were several more electrical control panels that hung from the ceiling, the others guessed there was a open switch somewhere. In the farthest corner of the room was a large object in the shape of a car and was covered by a large grey tarp. On what Red assumed to be the windshield of the car was a small yellow envelope.

Red walked towards the cloaked object, followed by the rest of his team, he picked up the envelop which read "To Red" on the cover, Red smirked as he reached his hand down to his knee and pulled out a small, handheld knife from one of his many sheates. Flicking the knife open he slit the top of the envelope open and poured it's contents into his hand, the first was a set of key's which came out quickly and roughly, the second was a paper which fell out gently into his hand, Red pocketed the key's and raised the paper to eye level and read it out loud.

"Dear Red, I knew you'd be the first person to be in the garage, judging by the amount of time you spent in mine back at the tower. I hope you like the gift I left you, I also hope you don't mind the lack of a paint job but I had no time to paint pink bunnies and little flowers on the car before you left. Sincerely, Your friend Cyborg".

Red smiled, gently folded the letter into a small square and stuck it in a pocket on his pants. He grabbed the tarp with one hand and with one strong tug, pulled the entire tarp off of the object, revealing a T-Car, identical to the one back at the tower, the same style which Red had envied since he first laid eyes on it, though he had to disagree with Cyborg's decision to keep it unpainted.

Red put on a smile as he ran his hand over the hood of the car, turning his head back at the team he saw that all of them, with the usual exception of Lightlad, stood with smiles on their faces.

"We gonna get going or what?" Lightlad asked. He, apparently unlike the rest of his team, had no intentions of watching Red take joy in a something as simple as a box with some circle attached to the bottom of it. Red picked up on the negative vibe Lightlad was giving off and smirked.

"Only if I can drive" he said leaping over the hood of the car and quickly getting into the drivers seat, Sev smiled.

"Shotgun" he called out as he rushed towards the passenger's seat of the car, he quickly got in and immediately took great admiration to the technology in the car, to him it was no longer a heap of scrap metal with wheels, the car was now a mobile computer, there were dozens of input slots, each one compatible with a different electronic device, Mp3, DVD, Laptop, you name it, it had it. There was also what looked like a six disk C.D. player with large speakers attached to each door, no doubt the car could get louder than a typical Mettalica concert.

The rest of the team began taking their seats in the car, Slack sat on the right, Blizkid in one of the two middle spots, Tag in the second and Lightlad beside her, Red smiled and turned his head towards the group.

"Now…If I were you I'd buckle up" he said as he stabbed the key into the ignition and turned it roughly, the others began to feel uneasy about Red driving, but before any of them could voice their complaints the car's engine started and just as quickly as the engine had started the car shot off, heading down the long hall that led to the end of the garage.

Sev, who during Red's 'speech' had been exploring the glove compartment found not only the garage door opener, but also a spare set of key's, these would come in handy should Red ever loose his, clicking the button quickly, the door opened and the T-car shot out, narrowly avoiding the garage door slicing off the roof.

The car spun down the street at speeds only reachable by Kid Flash, though much to the others surprise Red was double the driver they had expected him to be, triple in Lightlad's case.

As he came out of the seclusion of the tower's lonely and empty road and into the rush hour traffic of the highly populated city, the others were surprised to learn he handled the car with excellent skill, he swerved his way through traffic with great ease and joy, it was almost surprising to see Red this 'happy', if you could call it that, it was like driving somehow calmed him down, as he no longer had his typical cold glare on his face, a large smile in it's place.

The T-car sped down the next two blocks, by this time it was almost apparent that Red had no idea where he was going, Slack would solve this problem by handing Sev her communicator, he accepted it and placed it on the small stand attached to the left hand dashboard. As Red continued his trek through the city Sev input the coordinates of the building into the GPS system on the car, Red noticed this and started to slow his driving down.

"Sev…mind telling me where the hell I'm going?" he asked as he swerved the car to the right fiercely, the car cut through a back lane and

"Certainly, take a right two blocks from here" Sev said, The T-car sped through the next two blocks, taking the right turn sharply, Red narrowly missing smashing the back of a bright red Ferrari while he did.

"Now what?" he asked, slowing down as he awaited further instructions. Sev looked at the GPS and quickly memorised the next three steps to getting to the building.

"Take a left a block from here then two rights down the next two blocks" he said, Red nodded and gunned the engine, he sped down the block quickly, taking the left with the precision of a NASCAR driver, there was no doubt Red could easily out do the others in any form of racing.

Red took the next right with a great level of skill, several cars honked at him as he passed them, one giving him the finger, Red fought the urge to get out and beat the driver senseless, he'd have to save that for a later day.

Finally the car came to a sudden and impact heavy stop, each body in the back of the car flew forwards roughly, had it not been for their seatbelts which were fastened around their waists tightly they would surely have smashed through the thick glass windshield of the car.

"Whoa" was all Slack could manage to say from her seat, the others slowly opened the car doors and practically fell out of them, Red, who, unlike the rest of his team, had gotten an adrenalin rush from the ride, quickly got out of his door, to his feet and rushed over to help Slack to hers.

"Easy, easy..alright you got it" he said raising her body by her arm gently, she got to her feet, brushed herself off and tilted her head slowly from left to right, trying to shake away the massive headache that Red's driving had brought on.

On the other side of the car Lightlad helped both Tag and Blizkid to their feet, receiving a polite "Thank you" from Tag and a quick "Thanks" from Blizkid, which was more than he expected from him. The group re-met on the opposite side of the car, the side where Slack, Red and Sev all stood, and stared in awe at the Biogen building.

The building was the same one that both Blizkid and Slack had seen the previous day, though what both teens saw was no where near as awe inspiring as what stood before them today. It was the tallest building any of them had ever seen in their lives, it was at least the size of two of Jump Cities tallest sky scrappers piled on top of the other, the design was much like that of a hair pin, it was flat on the bottom and gradually got taller and thinner as it progressed upwards, finally ending off with two tall horn like devices at the top. What had looked like metallic tubes to Blizkid the previous day, now revealed them selves to be large spider leg shaped exhaust shoots which attached from the back of the base of the tower and wrapped around to the front upper portion of the tower, aimed upwards and away from the tower, each one emitted a large cloud of black smoke, this surely wasn't healthy for the environment.

At the base of the building stood a small metal courtyard were several dozen trees and bushes sat along the base of a small brick 'road' that led to the entrance of the building.

The group walked through the courtyard, taking time to admire the many plants and bushes along the way, finally they came to the end of the courtyard, they now stood in front of two large blue glass doors, each one had "Biogen" printed neatly on the front. Red pushed the doors open, the swung forward and led to a small walkway that led to yet another set of doors, as the group walked through the hallway a voice recording played a message above their heads.

"Hello and welcome to Biogen Corporation, If you are seeking employment please consult one of our many reseptionists. If you are here for a tour of our building please visit the receptionists also. If you are visiting regarding the unwanted side effects of an experiment please consult the health and safety department, thank you and have a good day" the voice said in a robotic like monotone.

The group reached the second set of doors and opened them, this time their sight wasn't met with a hall but rather a large waiting room of sorts. It was a large mostly open room with three elevator shoots, to the right of the elevators was a round wooden desk where several receptionists, dressed in fancy and expensive clothing sat at, they had headsets attached to either their right or left ears and flat paneled computers in front of them. In the middle of the room stood large circular fountain with a tall statue, made entirely of gold in the middle of it, the statue depicted a man, who looked exactly like to the man they had seen on the TV interview, holding a globe in his hands like he would a dove. There was a caption underneath the statue that read "For the people".

"And I thought the Tower was classy" Sev said as he and the others progressed further into the building, they stopping at the large, round desk. Slack approached the desk and gently leaned on it, shifting her weight to her arms.

"Hello, how may I help you?" the receptionist asked politely with a smile, Slack returned the smile.

"Where here to see Mr. Hoffman" she said, the receptionist tapped a few keys on her keyboard before she turned back towards Slack.

"You must be his two O'clock, I'll send Mr. Lloyd right away" she said pressing several more buttons on her keyboard, "If you'd like you can take a seat on the couches over there" she said pointing towards a large couch that surrounded the statue, where the rest of her team sat, patiently awaiting their escort.

Several minutes past before a small glass elevator slowly descended down one of the elevator shoots, inside the elevator stood a short, somewhat scrawny and remote African American man, he looked to be within his late twenties or early thirties, his head was covered by a small flat puff of hair, almost forming an afro and was dressed in a bright brown suit, black dress pants and brown leather shoes.

The elevator touched down on the bottom of the elevator shaft and the two glass doors slowly slid open, the man rushed out in a fast strut and raced towards the receptionist.

"Mindy…where are Mr. Hoffman's Two O' Clock's?" he asked the secretary nervously, she smiled a soft smile and pointed her finger towards where the group sat.

"Over there Mr. Lloyd and might I say you're suit looks excellent on you" She said with a smile, he faked a smile and quickly rushed over to where Slack sat on the couch, she stood up as he approached and he slowly slowed down as he reached her.

"You must be Slack" he said extending his hand, she smiled politely, shook it and nodded her head.

"I'm Aaron Lloyd, I spoke with one of your members over the phone" he said, his voice carreing a semi-nervous tone with it, Slack took note of this, it seemed as if he were trying to rush the introductions along quickly.

"I hate to rush you off but Mr. Hoffman's asked to see you and….well, what he wants he gets" Aaron said with a soft chuckle and a small smile.

"If you'd head towards the elevator" He said ushering Slack and the others, who'd gathered around him during his and Slack's conversation, towards the elevator.

He piled into the elevator along with them and pressed a button labelled "Main Office", the elevator doors slid shut and the elevator began to travel upwards.

As the elevator traveled through various floors it allowed the team a good look at what was going on around the building, they passed a floor where a team of white coated scientist types stood in front of a caged monkey, one of the men had a needle in his hand and just as he was about to inject it into the monkey's stomach the elevator passed the floor.

The elevator passed through several more floors where different assortments of experiments were taking place, as the group, mostly Sev, watching with astonishment at the sights they saw, Aaron adjusted his tie, loosing it's grasp around his neck, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small handkerchief which he dabbed across his forehead, taking a small excess of sweat attached to it.

Finally the elevator came to a halt, stopping on the top floor of the building; the group came out of the elevator slowly, with Aaron leading them. In front of the group was a large extravagant hallway that led to two large oak doors, they walked down the hallway and stood in front of the oak doors, Aaron knocked on the doors and stood with his hands behind his back.

The doors opened slightly to reveal a tall muscular Caucasian man, he had a shaved Mohawk atop his head and a large bushy goatee above and around his mouth, both were coloured a shade of brown that looked almost unnatural on a man like him. He was dressed in a black and red leather jacket, black jeans and an un-tucked white undershirt. Red could distinctly make out a small shape in his shirt that stuck out, if he was right this 'guard' was carrying a handgun which was gently concealed underneath his leather coat.

"Where the hell have you been Lloyd? Hoffman was expecting your ass a half an hour ago, and who the hell are these spandex wearing ass wipes behind you!" he shouted angrily, Red smirked from his spot behind Aaron, this guy was a typical your typical low life thug type.

"I know, I know I'm sorry alright…and these are Mr. Hoffman's Two o clock, so if you'd just let us in-" Aaron said nervously trying to squeeze through the door only to be stopped by the man.

"I don't think so Lloyd, you ain't getting in here unless Hoffman says so and so far he's said jack-squat so why don't you and the freak patrol take a cake walk" the man said rudely, about to shut the door on Aarons face, he was interrupted by a voice from behind him.

"Mr Beest is there a problem?" the voice from behind him asked, the man, now identified as 'Mr. Beest', burrowed his eyebrows into a frown and sighed.

"No sir Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Lloyd was just bringing in you're Two O' Clock" he said opening the door with great reluctance, Aaron smiled to himself as he entered with the group trailing along behind him.

The inside of the 'Penthouse' was nothing short of breath taking, it was a large room, almost double the size of the lounge back at the tower, there was a mini bar to the right of the room where several dozen bottles of assorted liquor sat, gently relaxed on a the small metal counters they were attached to. In the middle of the room sat two long couches, each one pointed away from the other so that one faced the wall and the other faced the door, the entire back wall of the penthouse was a large black tinted window, much like the one back at the tower, that overlooked the entire city. In front of the window sat a large wooden desk that faced opposite the view of the city, on the desk sat a large glass ashtray, a box of cigars and a small intercom. Behind the desk was a large leather chair where a man's hand could be seen holding a thick brown cigar.

The chair spun around to bring to view the figure of a man, the same one they had seen twice before, once on the TV and the second time as a statue in the lobby of the building, though in person he looked somewhat different from his appearance both other times, his face was somewhat wrinkled along the forehead and cheeks, no doubt this was due in part to age and most likely his assumed constant smoking, he smiled as he laid eyes on the six teens who stood at his doorway.

"Ah, you must be the Titans; I'm Dennis Hoffman, president of Biogen Corporation and this is my associate Mr. Bruno Beest. Please let met me be the first to say it's an honour to meet you all, can I offer any of you a drink, maybe a glass of wine, scotch-" he paused to take a good look at the team, realising that they were all teenaged kids he rethought his proposition "-grape juice?".

"I'll have a glass of Coke if you don't mind" Slack said as she approached one of the several chairs seated in front of Hoffman's desk, Hoffman smiled and turned his attention towards a quiet Beest who stood in the corner of the room silently.

"Mr. Beest, if you wouldn't mind" he said, Beest frowned, huffed objectively and slowly strolled towards the mini bar; next Hoffman turned his attention towards where Mr. Lloyd stood silently.

"Mr. Lloyd I'm sure you have other business to attend to…perhaps helping Doctor Freeman with his 'interplanetary travels' project?" he asked, Lloyd nodded his head vigorously and silently exited the room.

"Now then, let's discuss our plans for Hallow City" he said as the group finished taking their seats around Hoffman's desk, Slack smiled, though this wasn't her usual casual smile, it was a hard and serious smile, a smile the others would come to call her 'business' smile.

"As you are probably aware Hallow City is a very large city, full of thousands of people and hundreds of potential criminals, now I don't want to speak for you or you're team, but I know I would need a hand defending Hallow City if I were in your shoes. What I'm offering is a sort of 'You scratch my back I scratch yours' deal. I offer you my company's resources and services and in return you have clean up duty to any of my company's experiments that get out of hand while diverting the media's attention from this fine facility, not all media attention is good you know" he said with a malicious smile on his face, Slack looked confused as to what he was offering.

"You're asking us to clean up after your messes?" Slack asked in disbelief, Hoffman smiled.

"More or less" He said with his devious smile, Slack was liking were this conversation was going less and less, the president of a multi-billion dollar genetics company was asking her to regard seeing any of it's illegal activities, she knew right away what she had to do and say.

"And you're messes are illegal?" Sev asked. Hoffman's smile grew slightly, something the others regarded as not being a good sign.

"I run a very large company whose yearly intake is more than most men would ever dream of making in a lifetime, part of that salary comes from some of my more 'boundary pushing' research that some on The Hallow City Health Board see as….'un-ethical' and 'inhumane', so I have to keep the projects and the minds responsible for them hidden from the public, What I'm asking is that you keep my secret safe….you can do that, cant you?" Hoffman asked with a mix of genuine concern and an equal amount of cynicism.

"As a member of the Teen Titans and keeper of the peace, I have no choice but to order you to desist your illegal activities and appeal to a court of law" she said in text book like fashion, Hoffman smirked.

"While that was a very threatening speech Mrs. Slack, I'd advise you that it'll take more than a few simple threats to stop me" Hoffman said with his malicious smile, Slack looked un-amused.

"We will shut you down Hoffman" she said in an angered tone, Hoffman's smirk only doubled.

"I find it hard to believe that you can stop me, besides you have no evidence of any illegal activities taking place other than your word and I don't think that will hold up in any court, I can see it now The Teen Titans, responsible for thousands of dollars in damages every year vs. Biogen, a Multi Billion dollar genetics company that provides cures to many of today's problems…who do you think would win?-" Hoffman asked. Slack looked angrily at Hoffman, though part of her knew he was right, she couldn't take him to court and without evidence even she couldn't arrest him, Hoffman saw the defeat in her eyes and smiled.

"This isn't over, we will stop you, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but we will stop you" Slack said as she stood up in her chair, though her intent wasn't to leave but instead to add a level or seriousness to her speech.  
From his seat Hoffman moved his left hand under his desk and pressed a small button on the underside of the desk, this action went unnoticed by the titans.

"I'd advise you to sit down Mrs. Slack" he said bringing his hand back up to the desk and laying it flat on it, Slack glared angrily at him, which he returned with a knowing smile.

Suddenly the door to the room was slammed open and three bodies filled the room, the first was a tall, well built, African American man dressed entirely in red metallic armour, he had a pair of thick black sunglasses on his eyes and his hair tied back in thin corn rolls, behind him stood two men dressed in the same metallic armour as the first man but with a blue tint to it, the men's facial features were hidden behind a large metallic helmet that looked like a mix between a Motorcycle helmet and a pair of blue tinted night vision goggles, each man held a long club in their hands, each 'club' ending with a large bulbous attachment which sparked electricity from time to time.

"Is there a problem Mr. H?" The helmet less man asked, Hoffman smiled, looked at Slack then the rest of the team and then re-directed his attention to the man.

"No problem Dexter my guests were just leaving...isn't that right?" Hoffman said with his devious smile, Slack looked at him, and then at the three armed guards who were obviously there to make sure that they left. As much as she wanted too she couldn't order her team to attack the guards then Hoffman, it was both impractical and dangerous, who knew how many more guards were in the tower still, she frowned to herself and made her decision.

She got up in her chair, this action was followed closely by the rest of her team, who followed after her to the door, walking past the three armed guards who snickered to themselves as they left the room, she stopped halfway down the hall and gave Hoffman a dark and challenging glare before walking the rest of the length.

"Goodbye now" Hoffman said with a smirk as the group exited the office, he waited a moment before turning his chair to Beest, who stood with his arms crossed at the side of his desk.

"Are you good now Mr. Hoffman sir?" Dexter, the singled out leader of the group, asked.

"Every thing is fine now Mr. Hoxie you and you're men can go back to what ever it was you were doing before this" Hoffman said, Dexter nodded his head and slowly left the room followed by the two other guards.

Hoffman sat contently in his desk and brought his left and right leg up towards the desk, relaxing them on it, the right leg atop the left before reaching into a small box and pulling out a large brown cigar, he put the cigar to his lips, lit a match on his table and brought it to the cigar, igniting it and bringing it to 'life'.

"Mr. Beest I'd like for you to call my nephew and tell him I have a business proposition that requires the full attention of himself and his merry little band of miscreants, and when you do, do that, please make sure to mention that this 'project' involves elliminating the Titans" Hoffman said with a devilish smile.

* * *

Sorry To leave it off with such a crappy Cliffhanger but as I've said times before this chapter was just too long to include everything I wanted. Now let's focus on something we can all take joy in reading, thats right another addition of The Captains Crazy Trivia (and useless facts). 

Biogen, the evil company is a mix of the companies Biosyn and Ingen from the Jurrasic Park books by Michael Crichton, the company itself is based on (believe it or not) Microsoft and how all the world see's it as a "Evil Corporation".

Bruno Beest's last name is supposed to be pronounced 'Beast' not 'Best', also, reggarding the character of Bruno Beest, his character was modeled after U.F.C. champion Chuck Liddell (If you don't know who he is it's ok, it's not that important), who also happens to be my favorite U.F.C. wrastler'.

Dennis Hoffman is named and modeled after actor Dennis Hopper as well as his character Kaufman in Land Of The Dead. I tried (and hopefully succeeded) to make him a funny but still heartless and merciless tyrant, Hoffman will be the 'Slade' of this story acting as the main antagonist of the story as well as his company Biogen acting as the main 'villian' of the story.

Also reggarding character inspiration, Aaron Lloyd was based on actor Phil Lamar (The voice of Hermez in Futurama) and Dexter Hoxie was moddled after rapper/actor Xzibit, again this is of no real value and purely there for kicks.

In this chapter Hoffman mentions "Doctor Freeman", this is a reference to the video game Half Life (wow I felt like a nerd writing that).

Finally, The last bit O' trivia, this chapter is by far the longest I've written and went through the most changes in storyline. Originally it had the characters being interviewed by the reporter Sarah Soho and eventually being offered a chance to help Biogen, that, as well as three other storylines, got cut when it went nowhere.

Next Chapter: Our heroes face their first day in Hallow City and learn that Hallow City may need more help then they can give as they face off against two impending dangers, the first is Biogen, a genetics company that happens to be Hallow City's number one source of income but Biogen has a less than noble agenda when if comes to their experiments, Biogen also happen to be led by a man who has various ties to Hallow City's seedy underworld. Their second problem lies in one such tie, a gang of vicious street teens called The Reapers who are led by a group of super powered teens with their minds set on not just beating the Titans but destroying them


	7. Chapter 7: Day One: Part 2

Edit: January 17th.  
After Editing and tweaking the hell out of this chapter, I can safely say that this is for sure the actual version of the chapter I wanted to put on the site...the reason I didn't before...It's a long story, the details of which consist of a mix of my anger towards my bro for destroying my xbox 360 (the full details of which you'll read about below), it being 4 in the morning when I uploaded it the first time and Microsoft word's incompetence...But this is the real version I wanted to put on..so read and enjoy.

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Summary: Follow the adventures of Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and Sev members of the newly organized Teen Titans H.C defending Hallow City from the perilous dangers it faces day-in-day-out. They'll have to face an assorted array of villains including, A psychotic gang lead by a team of super powered teens, a deadly bounty hunter with a mysterious link to one of the Titans, a bloodthirsty werewolf willing to turn any one in his way into a midnight snack and a multi billion dollar genetics corporation that's not all that it seems to be to name a few. But their most dangerous threats come from facing and overcoming each others assorted pasts as a team. Expect tons of guest appearances by the original Titans as well as other D.C. Comics heroes and villains.

Well, well, well. Look who came crawling back...ol' leg-less Joe himself...whoops sorry didn't realize you'd come in. Welcome back Everyone (And a warm welcome to any new comers). As always I'll be your host throughout this chapter...so saddle up the mule and prepare to be blown away...but first A little info aboot what's going down in my neck of the woods.

First Off: What started as a two parter quickly stretched past the border of 'Two-Parterville', reaching into the not so far off country of "Three Partsland", so naturally with this revolution I had to break the second part of the chapter into two separate chapters. This chapter alone is well over 14 thousand words long and was originally going to be broken into another chapter, thankfully I didn't and here you are, reading the raw, uncut and uncensored version of this chapter.

Secondly: A big thank you to Avrayne, Dragontwin, Aerisphoenix and of course Splint for reviewing in the past two chapters. I appreciate the sacrifce you made by taking the time to write a review (It seems like this is a hard thing to do as less than a quarter of the over 200 readers of this story seem uncapable of doing it). This story thanks you for keeping it alive and kicking.

Thirdly: Like I promised last chapter, This chapter is chock full of action, and I'm not talking any sissy, two word un-descriptive action, I'm talking real action, the kind that would make John Wayne, Bruce Lee, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone all cry to their mommies (O.K. Maybe it's not that great...). I should warn you, the action is pretty 'boundary-pushing' and really throws the "T" rated envelope out the window, I'm talking, limb loss, axe wounds, stab wounds, gunfire, explosions and the works...so If you're the weak of heart, preggers or any thing else that can't take the heat...I'd suggest you get out of the fire.

Fourthly: Of all the unholy luck, My brother, an Eight year old psychopath with the mind of Curious George and the strength of King Kong, decided that, what was best for my 360 was a nice "Shake the baby" session, so while it was on he unplugged it, picked it up and shook the hell out of it, which 'unexpectedly' broke it. This is the second time he's done it (The first was when he unplugged it when he was playing 'hide and go seek')...which in a way is good because all I have now to maintain my sanity is writing this story, but it's terrible because without video games I'm as bored as...well...bored can be.

Fifthly: Expanding upon the "What If This Was An Actual Series" idea I had last chapter (The part about who'd do the theme song). I came up with a short list of actors and actresses who I would consider to play the main characters (It might change in the future, this is sort of a 'rough draft'.)  
Slack: Grey DeLisle (Sam From Danny Phantom)  
Lightlad: Jason Mardsen (Firefly from The Batman)  
Tag: Cynthia Farell (Catalina from GTA 3 and San Andreas)  
Blizkid: Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson from The Simpsons)  
Sev: Daniel Dae Kim (Jin Kwon from Lost)  
Red: Cole Hauser (Johns From Pitch Black) or Michael Jai White (Spawn from…well, Spawn).  
Again this means nothing, nor does it have any relevance to the story at all. I just thought I'd do it for the kicks. Also If you have any suggestions as to who might play a character, feel free to include it in your review (If you do at all).

Sixthly: I added a new summary to the story, as the old one didn't have much 'spark' to it, this action was definitely not a lame crack at attracting a new crowd of fans...what would make you say that? (Hehehe)

Finally: A disclaimer. The good Captain does not own any of the Teen Titans, Jump City or any other D.C. property owned in this non-profit work of fiction. What I do own are the characters Slack, Red, Tag, Lightlad, Blizkid and Sev, Hallow City and the plot to this story as well as a broken Xbox 360 and twelve dollars of five cent candies used to help me edit this chapter.

Now Then. This is your Captain speaking, We're hitting a little "Ass Kicking" Turbulence, I'd suggest, sitting down, buckling up and preparing to have your socks rocked by this chapter.

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Chapter 6: Day One  
Part 2: Meet The Reapers

Slack stormed through Biogen's large and lively courtyard angrily, not so angry at herself for how she handled the whole situation with Hoffman, but angry at the fact that she'd almost been tricked into helping a company responsible for it's own illegal trouble out of their current situation, no doubt Robin wouldn't have fallen for something that simple.

Her body was fuelled by this very anger and her mind clouded with ideas, what if she had accepted his offer? What if it was by accident? What if her refusal was part of his plan? She needed mental release, or closure, she needed to meditate, to relax her stress filled mind.

The others followed slowly behind her, knowing full well that anything they did would surely anger them, well four out of the five had that mentality, Red, acting as the group's unofficial leader, had a different image in his mind.

"Slack wait" he called out, Slack stopped abruptly, she really didn't want to talk at the moment, especially not with him, not for anger reasons but for the same reasons she found it so hard to talk with him in the gym.

She turned around slowly, her face was formed into a look of rage and sorrow; both looks were derived from her almost complete manipulation at the hands of Hoffman and Biogen.

"What?" she asked in a shaky yet still angry voice, Red noted that the emotions she was emitting were of a mixed genre and took this into consideration for what he'd say next.

"Slack, sometimes all you have to do is take the good with the bad" he said, in a calm cool voice, something unusual for Red as his normal tone of voice was harsh and rough. Slack noticed the change and glanced at him questioningly, he imagined she'd do something like that; it wasn't everyday he had showed complete compassion and remorse.

"What 'good' is there in us almost falling for Hoffman's scheme? We were almost fooled into doing his dirty work and you think there's some good in that?" She asked harshly, like her questioning look response to his question, Red had also expected her to show some sort of confusion to his statement.

"The 'good' is that we didn't fall for it, that were not his pawns, because of you're quick thinking and ability to tell we were being manipulated, for one. Another piece of 'good' is that we got to see how things work at Biogen, how well it's protected and to a slight degree what drives Hoffman and his company's regime. For example, some things I learned were that Beest carries a handgun underneath his left arm, Hoxie and his men uses the same kind of momentary stun device the police use in Jump City and that Hoffman smokes a Cuban cigar…sometimes all you gotta do is find a thin layer of good among the levels of bad" Red said, his words seemed to affect Slack to a certain degree as she no longer held her angry sorrow filled face, she instead seemed impressed by Red's display of knowledge.

"Maybe your right" She said with a soft smile, the group behind Red slowly started to brighten up with the smiles slowly beginning to return to their otherwise emotionless faces, Red saw this and smiled to himself, making sure that none of the others saw this, both as a sign of weakness and of concern.

"So…maybe we should head back?" Sev suggested, Red and the others looked over at Slack who noticed this and nodded her head slightly, Sev smiled slightly.

"You driving Red?" Sev asked, Red nodded his head and the others smile's widened, things were slowly starting to go back to normal, Red was driving, Slack was no longer upset and Sev was his usual joking self, things were looking up for them.

Two miles into the downtown of Hallow City, was a small section of Hallow City which was known and highly regarded as being both a high class and virtually crime free area of Hallow City. Some considered it to be Hallow City's own version of The Las Vegas Strip as it was both extremely glamorous with virtually every building in the area being either a exclusive club, fancy bar or casino as well as visited by many of the countries top celebrities, most of whom spend more than enough of their time at 'The Strip's' glamorous bars.

In the middle of 'The Strip' stood a large white windowless building which shared its design with visually stunning Sydney Opera House, in Sydney Australia. This building was known to residents of Hallow City as "Club Sydney", Hallow Cities most glamorous and exclusive club.

Inside Club Sydney was the usual club attire though each one was emphasized to the point where they were no longer tools but rather art. There was a large stage with two larger stages stacked underneath it, each one gradually getting larger as they reached the floor, there were also a series of large speakers where the bass of a loud Rap song pounded through the speakers. The stage was illuminated with pink and blue spotlights that flashed fast and constantly.

To the right of the stage stood a solid glass bar in the shape of a horseshoe, inside several bartenders worked hard as they busily carried out the various orders they received, across the roof were a series of metal cages which hung from a series of metal bars attached underneath the roof, inside the cages scantily clad women danced suggestively while both men and women tossed dollar bills into the cages.

Sitting at the horseshoe shaped bar were three teens, all three were aged slightly above drinking age, which in Hallow City happened to be eighteen years, making each one roughly eighteen to nineteen years of age.

The first teen was a good looking man with pale white, almost albino skin. He had combed down short brown hair and was dressed in an expensive black dress shirt, black jeans and white dress shoes, all of which added to his already large 'attraction factor'. He stood inches taller than the average partier, making him somewhere between five ten and five eleven.

The next teen was an abnormally large teen, standing at least seven foot six and had a thick and stocky body, making him appear extremely intimidating as well as fearsome. He had tanned white skin and a shaved head, leaving only a small amount of 'fur' on it. He also wore a pair of black tinted goggles strapped around his head, the bottom of his face had an excess of bushy hair that stretched from under his bottom lip to down to his chin to form what some might call a 'soul patch'. He was dressed in a dark blue baggy T-shirt, blue jeans and a pair of casual runners, not exactly 'Club' attire but still more fashionable than average street ware.

The final teen was an extremely attractive woman; she had fair white skin, deep brown eyes and stood somewhat shorter than the first teen. She had shoulder length whitish blonde hair worn in fashionable style; her model of dress also reflected her fashion sense. She wore a light black gown dress that cut off just above her knee's, giving it a somewhat flirty style to it, out of the three she could be considered the most fashionable.

The first teen sat in his stool, his arms slouched on the bar with his attention shifting through various attractive females throughout the room, and several gave him flirtatious smiles which he non-chalantly returned before moving his attention towards another female, giving her the same flirtatious smile he'd done to the previous one.

The taller teen's attention was focused on two different things, the first was the female teen in the chair beside, though it was only from time to time and the second was at the half finished drink which sat in front of him, he spun around in his chair and slammed both arms on the table roughly, shaking his and several other drinks beside his as he did, he placed his hand around the large glass, tossed it back and sipped it thoroughly.

Finally the female teen's attention was moving throughout the room, she stared across from her seat at a somewhat attractive male teen her age who gave her a meek smile, she rolled her eyes at him, the man looked depressed and slowly got out of the seat, bringing to view an attractive brown haired girl in the crowd behind him. The blonde girl smiled and winked flirtatiously at her, the brown haired girl gave her a disgusted look and quickly turned away causing the blonde to frown and spin around in her chair to face the taller teen.

"So, Fox, what's on your agenda for tonight?" the taller teen asked the blonde, his voice was deep and carried a southern drawl with it, she looked up at him and smiled.

"I was thinking of going back to the pad and watching a chick-flick…you know something I'm sure you and Cain aren't really that interested in" she said, her voice carried a soft Australian accent with it, the taller teen smiled.

"I'll watch a movie with you….if you're no one else will that is" The taller teen said nervously though Fox, the blonde, didn't seem to notice this.

"Really…that would be so sweet" she said with a smile, the taller teen smiled to himself and politely turned his seat towards the brown haired teen.

"Yo, Cain…what do we got planned for tonight?" he asked. Cain, the brown haired teen, took a minute to think before speaking.

"Nothing I can imagine, why you gonna watch one of Fox's chick flicks?" he asked tauntingly, the taller teen frowned.

"No…I was just wondering" he lied, Cain smiled to himself, he knew that Quake, the taller teen, was both lying to him as well as hiding something, though what he might be hiding he didn't know.

Just then a slight mechanical ringing sound, in the tune of "Can't Touch This" could be heard coming from one of Cain's pants pockets, Cain reached into his pocket and pulled out a small white cell phone.

"Hold on a sec, uh?" he said as he flipped the cell phone open and put it to his ear, "Yellow?" he asked into the device.

"Joseph, it's your uncle speaking. You know the one whose responsible for you being in that very club that I know you're in right now" The voice of Hoffman could be heard coming from the other line, Cain cringed and put on a fake smile.

"Oh…yeah. How's it going boss?" Cain asked, from the tone in his voice it was apparent he was using fake concern and had little enthusiasm.

"Cut the chit-chat Joseph. Now I know you lead a very busy life, using _my_ money to pay for _your_ non-stop partying, excessive alcohol consumption and what ever else it is you teens do with your free time. But don't forget that you and your little friends are on my payroll, meaning that I expected you to have to work for me at some point in time. Now I know you probably have a long night of hard liquor consumption ahead of you, but instead of abusing that precious liver of yours, you're going to do some business for me, understand?-" Hoffman asked, Cain sat silently for a minute thinking his options over.

"-Joseph I know your there" Hoffman's voice cut into his thoughts, Cain frowned and brought the phone back to his ear.

"Yeah, I'm here..." he said silently, trying his hardest to hide his anger from his boss, who, from the way things were going, probabbly knew how he felt towards what he had to do.

"Good. Now here's how things are going to go down-" Hoffman said giving Cain the rest of the instructions, Cain nodded his head as he listened to his uncle's plan, it was devious, well concieved and very illegal...as were most of his plans.

"-Don't mess this up Joseph, or it's your ass" Hoffman said before the line went dead. Cain held the phone in his hands for a minute, thinking about how he'd enact the plan he'd just been told to follow.

"Quake, Fox, forget doing whatever it is you were plannin' on doin' tonight. I just got word from the boss and he wants us work tonight. Go get Lizard and the rest of the gang and tell them to meet me at Hallow City's First…ok?" Cain said in a hurried panic, something which was very uncommon for him.

Fox frowned to herself, she'd really wanted to have a nice relaxing night at the 'pad', maybe watch a movie with Quake, two days of partying had taken its toll on her as she was extremely tired, but Cain was her boss, he saved her from a fate worse than death and as such she owed him, and working for him was her way of paying him back.

Quake, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind this new revelation; instead his face had a large smirk that seemed indicate that he looked forward to it, he quickly got out of his chair and stood before Cain.

"What should I tell them?" he asked, Cain smiled an evil and devious smirk, this smile seemed to be a genetic thing as it was the same smirk that Hoffman used constantly.

"Tell them: The Reapers are back in action" He said, Quake and Fox smiled a clichéd evil smile before both set off towards the exit.

Back at the tower the elevator doors whished open and with them brought the noise and bodies of four of the six teens, Tag, was busy naming fish in the pond outside the tower, and Slack was doing a form of meditation in her room in order to 'clear her mind'. Blizkid and Lightlad sat themselves in front of the TV, grabbed their video game controllers and began to play a game of "Knee deep in the Dead 11: Runing the Gauntlet Of The Dead".

Behind the group, Red lay on the couch silently, his hood covering his face in an attempt to nap. Suddenly the hood of his jacket, which had been shielding his eyes from the light of the outside world, was tossed off his face and exposed his eyes to the blinding light, he squinted quickly and covered his eyes with his right arm.

"Hey, Red, could you give me a hand with something?" a voice called out from somewhere in front of him, he slowly brought down his shielding arm and was met with the sight of Sev, who he assumed had taken off his hood.

"It depends what this 'something' is" Red said slowly spinning his body off of the couch and getting to his feet.

"That 'something' would be helping me hook the crimeputer up here" Sev said, Red shook his head sideways, his way of saying 'no'.

"Common…I can't lug all that crap up here by myself…besides it'll help us reduce the time it takes to get to a crime scene" Sev said, Red sighed slightly.

"Lead the way" he said, Sev smiled and began walking towards the elevator.

Half an hour later the duo had finished setting up the machine, which now occupied a bright and cheery corner of the room, which happened to be conveniently located beside both the Kitchen and TV. Red had done most of the 'hard lifting' or as he thought of it 'manual labour', bringing up the generally heavy computer components, monitors, base stations, the works, all while Sev sat back and watched, either way Red figured it was a good workout, seeing as how some of the heavier equipment felt like it weighed more than sixty pounds a piece.

Finally, after much hesitation and delay, Sev was done installing the device, finalizing his portion of the job. The computer station was impressive to say the least, with more than a dozen flat screened monitors attached to the back of the first wall, each one hooked up to a separate computer underneath the hardwood table which held the monitors on it. To the right of the computers and screens were five smaller monitors, each one displaying a flat heart beat as well as names, written crudely on torn paper, taped to the top of the monitor, the names read: Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag and Blizkid, one for each member excluding himself, the last step was implanting small mechanical devices that would show not each members vital signs as well as current location.

"So how's this piece of scrap metal work?" Red asked as he ran a hand across the top of one of the smaller monitors, the one with "Red" written on it.

"First off, Its not a piece of scrap metal, this 'crap' is more accurate and useful than anything they got at the Pentagon, secondly, It works very easily, I use this computer here-" he said pointing to the largest of the computers, a tall black one with "Big Brain" spray painted on the side of it "-to hack into Hallow City's emergency lines, that includes, the fire station, the hospital and the police department. Then this baby-" he said pointing to a smaller, sleeker looking white computer, "-finds the source of the distress by hacking into the satellites surrounding Hallow City. Finally this bad boy-" he said slapping a middle sized grey computer "-is what I use to find out what exactly where up against" Sev said with much pride.

"What about the rest of em'?" Red asked. Sev smiled.

"I use the rest for other things, that little black one I use to find any information on your current whereabouts, for example: Should you be trapped in a two hundred year old Well, I just type "Well, the location and it gets me all the info I need. The other ones are used for different things, cameras, pizza ordering, the works, you name it, and it's got it" Sev said, Lightlad, who's interest had been peaked during the two's conversation, aimed a finger at one of the computers and spoke.

"And that red light?" he asked, Sev turned around quickly almost as if he were in a panic, upon sighting the light he did panic.

"Jebus (That's purposley spelt wrong just to let you know) Tapdancin'!" he shouted as he quickly leapt into the large wheeled chair to the right of the desk, the chair spun toward the computers, stopping directly in front of the signle black keyboard which was attached to each and every computer underneath machine. Sev slammed his fingers on the keyboard and began typing furiously, he stopped for a moment and looked back at the others, who now had both Tag and Slack amidst their ranks.

"It means trouble" he said in a serious tone, the others rushed over quickly, practically leaping off over each other as they did.

"What kind of trouble?" Slack asked as she reached the computer, Sev tapped a few more buttons and a 3-D image of a building was brought up on one of the computer screens.

"Bank robbery" he said tapping several more keys, Slack and the others began to feel uneasy, they'd just come from what could be described as a mission and they had every idea in their minds that this had something to do with both Hoffman and Biogen.

"Looks like the robbery's at Hallow City's First National Bank, apparently three traffic incidents have the traffic and the police pretty much backed up...that's kinda smart-" Sev said, the others looked at him questioningly.

"-In an evil, bad and not good what-so-ever way of course" He said in an attempt to cover up his smarmy comment.

"There's only one way in...and it looks like you could fit the T-Car in there..if Red's as good of a triver as he thinks he is" Sev said bringing up a 2-D image of a bridge connected to the bank, which showed a small hole, roughly a half a foot larger than the T-Car.

"Then it looks like we're going to have to take care of this" Slack said heroically, the others found great comfort in her level of heroism and the fact that she was no longer bad mood.

"Well before you go I aught to give you some 'gifts'." Sev said pulling open a drawer exposing several objects which were covered by a small white cloth, Sev grabbed the cloth and tugged it off, revealing the objects in question to be a series of small earpieces.

Sev handed each member of the team an ear piece, which they placed in and around their ear.

"It's a two way communicator, I can talk to you and vice versa…should the need ever arise that is" Sev said as he finished handing the last one to Lightlad who proceeded to speak loudly into it, causing his voice to be heard on both Sev's speakers as well as each other members headset.

"Wicked" he said as he finished speaking into it.

"So…who's ready to kick some ass?" Red asked, the others smiled and headed towards the elevator.

"Have fun ladies" Sev said, Red smirked and waved him goodbye at the same moment that the elevator doors opened. The group walked in and waved a final goodbye to Sev, who sat comfortably in his chair.

Half a mile from 'The Strip' was another of Hallow City's famous locations, a large white building which was almost half the size of an average sky scraper in both length and width. The building was known to the people of Hallow City as "Hallow City's First" or as it was really titled "Hallow City's First International Bank", it being the first bank built in Hallow City. A brief history lesson at the local library would explain that it was built in 1923 and helped to place Hallow City on the map as it helped to finance soldiers in the second World War.

To this day the bank held more than seventy million dollars in savings and over fifteen million in the contents of safety deposit boxes, all of which were securely hidden behind a thick vault door connected to a series of computers which helped to prevent robbery.

The bank was located on a small man made 'island' surrounded on all four sides by water with the back of the bank being exposed to the river that separated Hallow City from it's neighbouring city of Carter City. There were three bridges that connected the island back with the rest of Hallow City, all of which were all at the moment blocked by a series of flaming over turned buses, which helped to prevent any form of motorized vehicles from getting to the island.

The inside of the building was every bit as astonishing architecturally as the outside; the inside had an artistic touch to it with large white pillars attached to the walls of the lobby and a solid marble floor, shined to the point where staring at it would allow you a better reflection than your average mirror, there was also a large staircase that led to the second floor of the building.

The second floor was larger than the first and featured all of the working equipment; it was there that the tellers, accountants and security guards conducted their business, with the vault located in the large area underneath the stairs which was off-limits to any one but security and those with the proper security clearance, for obvious reasons.

Currently all the patrons in the lobby sat on the floor on their knee's with their hands raised above their heads, quivering and shaking in fear as several masked teens, all dressed in black and carrying dangerous firearms, aimed around the room randomly, firing in the air every so often to emphasize the point that "They weren't messing with anyone".

Inside the security room stood Cain and Fox, both of whom were dressed entirely in black clothing much like their cohorts, though each one's clothing was stylized a little differently than their 'men's' clothing was.

For Cain he dressed in a black hooded coat, much like the one Red wore constantly, though his lacked the red "R", black jeans with an empty leg holster wrapped around the right leg, and a pair of white sneakers. He twirled a large gold pistol carelessly around his right index finger, stopping every so often to aim it at the duo of security guards who lay unconscious on the floor to the right of him, he'd squeeze the trigger when he did, though, due to the guns unloaded nature that action only administered a 'click' noise with each squeeze.

Fox was dressed in a black hoodie, jeans and wore a dark black knit cap atop her head in an effort to keep the hair out of her eyes, her face was burrowed into a look of anguish and worry as she moved her eyes from screen to screen, Cain noticed this, placed his pistol back in it's holder and looked up at her.

"You alright Fox?" he asked, concern was heavy in his voice, though he wouldn't admit it to her, he felt as though the two had a brother-sister like relation ship, where he was the older brother and she was the younger sister.

"I'm fine, I'm just worried" she said as she stared worriedly at the monitor, onscreen, Quake, who was dressed in an all-black version of his 'club' clothing, including black pants, black muscle shirt and a black bandanna wrapped around his forehead with the black tinted goggles rested gently at the tip of the bandanna, stood in the vault, beside him stood a trembling security guard half his size, from the looks Quake was giving the guard harsh orders, most of them directing him to open the vault.

Suddenly a soft mechanical hissing sound was heard, it coming from a small walkie-talkie on the end of the table, right beside the many screens which showed the random events happening all around the bank.  
Cain spun around quickly and picked up the device, he held it to his mouth, pressed a small, round button on the side of the device.

"Yeah?" he asked franticly, the voice on the other side came out cackled and harsh.

"….Cain….backup….Ti-….Can y- hear me?" the voice on the other line asked in a panicked cackle, Cain pressed the button again and spoke into it for a second time.

"Cruz, what the hell's going on over there man?" he asked into the device, his question went unanswered with a simple statement yet powerfull answer taking its place.

"It's the Titans" the voice said before the line went dead.

In the lobby all six of the armed thugs aimed their weapons at the door, which was now reduced to a smoking hole in the wall with the door having been blasted off it's hinges seconds ago by a large explosion, in it's place was a thick wall of grey smoke in which nothing what so ever was visible.

"Cain, what do you want us to do man?" Cruz, the leader of the group of thugs in the lobby, asked into the walkie-talkie.

Back in the security room, Cain recalled the instructions his uncle had given him, he'd asked Cain to "Permanently retire The Titans", Cain stared for a minute at the large screen, which showed his men aiming their firearms at the opening in the room, he swallowed and brought the walkie-talkie to his mouth.

"Cruz, I want you to kill the Titans" he said before dropping the walkie-talkie to the floor.

"You heard the boss, waste em'!" Cruz shouted angrily, the others nodded their heads 'yes', aimed their weapons at the doorway and opened fire at the opening.

Dozens of bullets exploded out of the barrels of the thugs guns and flew at break neck speeds towards the open doorway, this continued for a short time as the thugs fired round after found from their guns, exhausting there ammo at a rapid pace. The bullets cut through the deep layer of smoke that still surrounded the door, slowly the sound of gunfire ceased to be heard with the 'click-click' of empty guns taking its place. the thugs lowered their weapons, they no longer had any ammo to fire at the Titans which angered them as it was easily the most fun part of the whole heist, seeying as how Cain and the others tasked them with very little more than 'standing watchout'.

Finally the smoke cleared and left Cruz and the others standing in a state of disbelief at the sight before their eyes, the cleared smoke revealed the image of five teens, all unharmed, surrounded by a bright blue orb which, upon closer inspection, would reveal it to be the work of Lightlad's light manipulating powers. At the base of the orb sat several dozen bullet shells, all of which had been destroyed by the force of the impact with the orb.

Slowly the blue orb around the teens began to diminish into the air. Cruz, as well as his men, all had angered looks on their faces at this point, they'd thought for sure they had killed them. As the orb around the teen's finished disapearing, all five teens moved forwards and entered the bank. Cruz, past his boiling point, looked over at his men, who stood in complete shock and awe, he burrowed his brows into a angry frown.

"Take them out!" He shouted to his men angrily; the group of thugs holstered their weapons, some in actual holsters and the rest shoving their empty guns into the back's of their pant's, and rushed towards the Titans, who all stood awaiting their advances.

A duo of thugs, both dressed entirely in black clothing, rushed at Slack. The first thug's hand's were rolled into fists, he looked like they had no problem hitting a girl which was good because Slack had no problem hitting them.

The first thug took a swing at Slack's head with his right fist, Slack quickly ducked under the blow, dodging it swiftly and just as quickly kicked her right foot at him, striking the thug in the soft flesh of his kidney; he growled, grabbed his kidney and fell to the floor in a heap.

Slack stood up and just as quickly leaned her body backwards, just in time to avoid a fierce right hook thrown by the second thug, she grabbed his hand before he had time to retrieve it, and using it as leverage, kicked him in the back, then head, then back again, the third kick seemed to do the trick as the punk's body went limp and his unconscious body slumped to the floor, Slack smiled, released her grip on his arm, which fell to the floor roughly, and turned her attention towards Red, who was squaring off against a second duo of thugs.

The first of the three thugs rushed at Red, in his hands he carried a small black handled switch blade and from the look in his eyes, Slack could tell he knew how to use it.

The thug stabbed the blade forwards at Red, who dodged the blow by leaping backwards, behind the second thug, who brandished a large silver baseball bat, wound the bat behind his back, ready to swing it into Red's head, this action was suddenly stopped by a blast of thick yellow light that collided with his side, sending his body flying across the room, only to be stopped when it came in contact with one of the many pillars attached to the walls, Slack looked to the right of Red where Lightlad stood, a smile on his face as a yellow glow around his right fist slowly diminished, he shot Slack a non-chalant glance before turning his attention back towards his own opponents.

Red wrapped his arm around the knife wielding thug's arm, preventing him from doing much but squirm with his right arm as he tried to escape his 'captor', the punk threw a series of violent punches into Red's chest with his left arm all of which were delivered weakly due to his in-efficient use of his left arm. Red turned his head to the thug's, who had a terrorized look in his eyes, Red smirked, brought his head back and with one swift movement head butted the thug with full force. The thug's head flew backwards and a thin pool of blood flew from his now broken nose, Red released his grip from around the thug's arm, causing the thug to fall backwards onto the floor.

Across the room Blizkid and Tag stood together, one behind the other with their back's touching, slowly a group of several thugs, Tag counted at least six on her side and Blizkid the same, formed a circle around them, edging closer, whistling, cat calling and hooting at Tag as they did.

"I got the hot Spanish chick" one of the thugs, dressed in the same clothes as the rest, save for a white Richard Nixon mask, said winking disturbingly at Tag. Tag gave him a disgusted look before bringing her fists up to her body, Blizkid stood with his arms at his sides, both of which had the tips of their fingers covered by a smoking white ice that slowly climbed up from his hands to back of his elbow, completely covering his fore-arms.

"You can have the hottie all you want, I call the blue freak" The thug to the right of the first cat calling thug said, this one dressed identically to his partner aside from the mask which instead of a Richard Nixon mask was a typical blue face mask.

Tag looked worriedly at Blizkid, who stood behind her with his own look of fear plastered on his face, she leaned her head backwards towards his ear.

"You think we stand a chance?" She whispered into his ear, Blizkid shivered a tad before leaning his own head back towards hers.

"I dunno" he said whispered back to her before turning his attention back towards the slowly advancing group of thugs. Tag, knowing full well that the two of them stood no chance against wrapped her left and right arms around Blizkid's, which felt icy cold in contrast to her own.

With a blink of Tag's eyes both teens disappeared in a puff of white smoke. The thugs looked around worriedly, unsure as to where their opponents had escaped to; finally their eyes were met with the sight of a series of solid circular balls made of solid ice speeding towards them, the group had little time to do much else but curse before their bodies were pounded by dozens of the projectiles, which, unbeknownst to them, came shooting out of Blizkid's ice covered arms. The full force of Blizkid's icy projectiles forced the thugs to fall to the floor in defeat, rendering them completely unconscious.

Finally all the thugs, excluding Cruz, who'd taken the time during his men's fight with the Titans to rush off and warn Cain about them, lay sprawled across the floor and completely unconcious.

Slowly the many hostages got off their knees and began to regain their calm and cool demeanour; several brushed themselves off before slowly approaching the Titans. A short fit woman in her mid thirties, carrying a small child in her arms approached Slack with tears in her eyes, she smiled at Slack and uttered "Thank you" in a quiet whisper before turning her attention towards the 'exit' and slowly heading out of it.

Several more men and woman, all of whom had just been hostages in the bank robbery, uttered their thanks to the Titans, almost all of whom looked visibly traumatized by the experience, one, a young girl at least six or seven, wrapped her arms around Slack's leg's, before rushing out the exit.

The team stood in a glorified stance for a moment, basking in both the warming glow of their victorious triumph over their adversaries as well as the heart-warming and self rewarding feeling that each one, including a quiet Red, felt deep in their hearts.

As the last of the no longer hostages left through the 'exit' the team turned their attention towards the back of the bank, a large stairwell as well as two long hallway's on opposite ends of the stairs, they had a lot of ground to cover and a short time to do it in, the real culprits were still at large and, to their knowledge, within the vicinity of the bank, they weren't done here, not by a long shot.

Cruz rushed down the hallway that led to the security room, his mind wrapped around the idea that somehow he held knowledge that his boss and second in command didn't, he approached the door and kicked it open roughly, shocking Fox, who sat in one of the two leather chairs in front of the screen, as he did.

"We have a problem" He said, his voice was shaky, raspy and out of breath. He took a moment to stop and breath, he'd just run the entire length of a stairwell as well as a long, long, hallway which had taken up every last breath of air from his lungs.

"Your God damn right we do!" Cain said angrily, grabbing Cruz by the neck and slamming his body against the back wall of the room, Cruz placed both of his hands on Cain's arm and feebly attempted to stopCain from choking the life out of him, his efferts were in vain as Cain was nearly three times stronger than himself.

From where she was seated Fox looked reasonably disturbed with the events unfolding in front of her, so disturbed that she turned her head away from the two and tried her hardest to pretend the events weren't happening behind her.

"You were supposed to take them out…now I have to do your dirty work!" Cain said angrily, he released his grip around Cruz's neck, who fell to the floor with a 'thump', landing roughly on his back, Cruz started panting and moaning as he slowly regained his breath.

Cain placed a hand on his forehead, putting pressure on his temples, he hadn't wanted to kill them himself, he'd wanted the Titan's blood to be on someone else's hands…but it was too late for that now, now he had to take over this whole thing himself, now_ he_ had to kill them. He sighed heavily, let loose a deep breath of air and slumped over in his chair, he sat for a good minute, thinking of a way to exterminate the Titans,

"Alright, Cruz. You go see what Lizard's up too, I haven't heard from him in a half an hour. Fox, I want you to try and subdue as many of them as you can" Cain ordered his 'men'.

Both of his cohorts nodded and quickly and swiftly exited the room, as they did Cain reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver flask, he brought it to his mouth and took a long sip of the hard liquor it contained, he stopped as it reached the half empty point and dropped it back into his pocket, he looked up at the monitor when something caught his eye, that 'something' happened to be a 'someone' and that 'someone' happened to be Slack.

He brought his head up and fumbled with the camera controlls untill the camera zoomed in on her image, he smiled to himself as he watched her regain her breath from her fight.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here" he said as the camera finished its zoom on Slack, he smiled his devilish smile and reached for the small walkie-talkie, grabbed it and brought it to his mouth.

"Fox?" He asked into the device, there was a soft mechanical cackle before a soft Australian voice responded with a "Yeah?"

"Don't take out the leader…I think I'll handle that responsibility" he said into the device.

"Gotcha" came his response. Cain smiled to himself, drew the pistol from its holster and pulled the slender golden slide back, loading the first shot into the golden chamber, he stuffed the pistol back in it's holder, gazed at Slack on the camera screen and smiled.

"Let's have some fun shall we?" he said to himself.

"Now that was a scuffle" Red said, moving out of the shadowed area of the lobby, Slack and the others nodded their heads in response.

"No doubt there are more of them around here" Slack said regaining her prior aggressive stance, it always paid to be prepared especially when the punk's were packing the kind of weaponry they were.

"We should split up" Lightlad suggested as they stared at the large open building ahead of them, Red stared questingly at him.

"What is this Scooby Doo?" he asked, sarcasm playing off his tone, Lightlad raised his arm towards Red and slowly began to raise his middle finger at Red, Red glared angrily at Lightlad who gave him mocking puppy dog eyes.

"I think Lightlad's right, we should split up, we can cover more ground that way" Slack said, Red huffed his opposition, swallowed his pride and nodded in agreement.

"I call the left hallway" he said, Lightlad smirked.

"I got the right one" he said, his decision to explore the hallway across from Red's only increased Red's anger.

"Me and Blizkid will take the upstairs right hall" Tag said with Blizkid nodding his head in agreement.

"Then I guess that leaves me with the left one" Slack said with a smile, the group nodded their heads, exchanged looks of concern for their team-mates and then proceeded to head off into their designated hallways.

Slack walked down her hallway slowly, planning her every step with precision and calculation, for all she knew there could be a hundred more thugs behind the next wall, and as such she wanted to be prepared for that possibility.

She came around a bend in the hallway which led her too a large open room, two stories high with dozens of book shelf's attached to the walls, this looked to be some sort of library of sorts, no doubt all of them were books about accounting and money transfers, though none of this peeked her interest as much as what, or rather who stood in the middle of the room.

Standing in the middle of the room was Cain, his golden pistol drawn and aimed for the middle of Slack's forehead. Slack swallowed, she knew both from the size, design and brand of gun he carried as well as how he carried the gun, that with the squeeze of his finger he'd blow her brains across the wall behind her.

"Hello gorgeous" Cain said with a sly grin on his face as he cocked the pistol with his thumb, Slack swallowed softly and stood with a mix of fear and defensiveness.

Tag and Blizkid walked side-by-side down their hallway, from their previous experience facing adversaries the two realized that they worked better as a duo than as single entities, this was due mostly to the fact that neither had any sort of hand-to-hand combat skills and relied mostly on their powers to help themselves out.

The two came to the end of the hall were they stopped and moved into a room directly in front of them, the room looked, unbeknownst to the two of them, identical to the one Slack was in at the moment with the only differences being that instead of book shelves, the room had walls with large file cabinets built into them, for what reason they were they're, the two could only guess as unlike Slack's room they're was no indicating sign on the wall to explain what each section was for.

As Blizkid stepped into the a bright green mist like glow struck him in the back, launching his body forwards, stopping only when it crashed into one of the file cabinets, his body hit the cabinet hard enough to leave a large dent in it and render him completely unconscious.

Tag spun around quickly too see Fox standing behind her, her hands had the same bright green mist like glow around them that the blast Blizkid had been hit with had.

"Oh…you're cute" Fox said flirtatiously, her comment obviously aimed at Tag, who blushed slightly, though she wasn't sure why she did, before bringing both her fists up towards her body in defense, Fox smiled, again flirtatiously.

"It's going to be so hard to hurt you, cutie" She said with a smile before bringing her fists up towards her body, the green glow increasing as she did, Tag looked over at where Blizkid lay, she then returned her glare to Fox who stood with a cocky, yet still flirty smirk on her face.

Lightlad stood in the open doorway that led into the vault, his gaze focused on Quake, who stood with both of his fists smashed into the vault, pulling it forcibly towards his body, it looked as though his crude display of strenght was working as the vault door was open slightly.

To Quake's right lay the guard he'd been shouting threats at earlier, Lightlad charged up a, what he called, 'light blast', a blast of energy fashioned the same way as the ones his father used when fighting The Original Titans. According to his father 'it was nothing too fancy, just a small orb of concentrated light derived from a mix of solar and made made energy' though the logic of this was lost on Lightlad, any one willing to learn about it would learn that the sceince behind it was good enough to garner Lightlad with a sceintific award.

Lightlad aimed his right arm at Quake and stood silently, focusing his arm for a critical point that would knock the behemoth out, he sidestepped to the left slowly, trying his hardest not to make any noise, unfortunately luck wasn't on his side as he accidentally slammed into a large shelf behind him, he panicked as a small jar of bolts fell of the top shelf and came crashing down to the floor, making an exceptionally loud noise as it hit the floor.

Quake spun around quickly, his large anger filled eyes met with Lightlad's fear full ones. Lightlad charged a 'light blast' up in his right arm; Quake saw this, smirked and brought his right leg backwards.

"How nice, a brand new chew toy" He said with a smirk before he kicked off of his legs and began a intense rush towards Lightlad, whose look of panic only increased as he drew closer.

Red walked down his hall stealthily, halfway down he'd spotted one of the thug's, the same one he'd seen rushing away from the fight earlier, running in the direction he was heading in. Red wasn't sure if he'd been spotted when he ran of and he sure wasn't taking any chances, he crept along the wall slowly, making sure that each step he took couldn't be heard by anyone but himself.

Finally he made it to the end of the hall. As far as he could tell no one was around the corner he had to cross to get to where he needed to go, he sighed a sigh of relief and released his body from the wall, suddenly and unexpectedly a large red fire-axe was swung violently at his body from around the corner, Red dodged backwards quickly, unfortunately it wasn't quick enough as the axe slashed deeply into his chest before slamming itself into the portion of the wall where Red had rested his body seconds before. The axe stuck into the wall, exposing it's handler to be Cruz, the teen Red had seen rushing down the hall.

Red placed a hand on his chest; there was now a thick diagonal gash from above his right bicep down to the skin which comforted his left kidney, had Red not been super-human the force of the axe would surely have taken him down, or possibly killed him.  
Red raised his hand, which was covered in his blood, wiped it across the left side of his jacket and struck a defensive pose, ready and awaiting Cruz's next blow.

Cruz, pulled the axe from the wall forcefully and took a horizontal swing at Red's head, which Red dodged by ducking under, again Cruz swung, this time downwards and again Red dodged it, this time by leaping out of the way, again the axe found itself stuck in the ground. Cruz tugged desperately on the handle in an attempt to remove the blade from the ground, but it was of no use as Red, who'd taken the time to get back to his feet, tackled Cruz against the wall, grappling him against the wall so that Cruz couldn't use either his arms or legs.

Cruz managed to wrestle his left leg out of Red's hold and kicked it up between his legs, hitting Red in the groin roughly. Red gritted his teeth and fell to one knee, giving Cruz enough time to escape his captivity and grab the axe's handle and pulled it out of the ground forcefully.

Red, still in a certain amount of pain from Cruz's cheap shot to the groin, managed to dodge another blow, though not as well as he'd done before as the axe sliced down on the tip of his tail, slicing three inches of the tail off, Red cried out in pain and quickly brought his tail back behind his leg.

Cruz smiled at the pain he'd inflicted on Red and tossed the axe forwards so that the axe's flat surface slammed into Red's face, knocking him to the floor, Cruz brought the axe back to his body, moved to over Red's body, raised it above his head and was prepared to slice deep into Red's chest, a move which would surely end Red's life, despite his super-human status.

Red stared first at the blood covered tip of the axe, then his bleeding tail and finally at Cruz's chest, he felt an intense amount of anger build up in his body and with what could only be described as a product of anger, he kicked both of his feet outwards in a split like kick, both feet found their targets behind Cruz's shins, tripping him and sending him falling backwards to the floor.

Red then proceeded to get to his feet at the same time that Cruz got to his, both made a mad dash for the axe, Cruz, who was much more nimble than Red, reached it first by jumping to his knee's, he picked up the blade and swung it at Red's knee cap's.

Red leapt over the axe and kicked the handle of it strongly, knocking the axe out of his hand and sending it spiralling through the air for a short second before it struck Cruz right in the side of his leg. Cruz screamed in pain and tried to pry the axe's blade from his leg, unfortunately Cruz's hands quickly became drenched in his own blood and caused each of his attempts to remove the blade fail as his hand continually slipped off the blade.

Red, who during this time had strolled behind Cruz, grabbed the handle forcibly and with one rough pull, pulled the axe from Cruz's leg, but not before purposely turning the axe as to inflict more damage than was neccisary, this move was inspired by Red's anger at the pain Cruz had inflicted upon him.

Cruz fell to the floor as the blade came out of his leg, he then grabbed the damaged part of his leg and rocked back in forth in the fetal position while continually murmuring "Mommy" over and over. Red held the axe in his right hand, and knelt down to Cruz's level, hovering over him.

"I don't wanna die" Cruz said pleadingly at Red, Red could see tears in his eyes as he grappled his bloody leg.

"You're not going to die" Red said angrily, he grabbed the shoulder of Cruz's hoodie and tearing it off, he then proceeded to wrap the 'bandage' around the wound, Cruz's eyes cleared up and he gave Red a questioning look.

"What are you doing?" he asked, Red sighed and finished wrapping the bandage around Cruz's leg.

"Despite what you might think, I'm not a bad guy, and I'm not going to let you bleed to death here…as much as I'd like too" Red said moving raising his body above Cruz's.

"This is the part I like the most" Red said, kicking his left foot into Cruz's head, not hard enough to cause serious damage, only hard enough to knock him out.

"Now then" He said grabbing the axe off of the floor, he raised it upwards and wrapped his hand around the small portion of the axe just underneath the blade.

He walked around the hall and into the room which he'd wanted to enter earlier, the room was large and completely dark, Red, having nocturnal vision could see perfectly well in the dark.

The room looked like it was going through a renovation as half of the walls were boarded up with thick pieces of wood, the floor was covered with a mix of wood and marble, the roof was nonexistent, replaced by several long pieces of wood that stretched across and exposed the above level of the building, also several toolboxes of all colours sat across the room.

As Red entered deeper into the room a hunched over humanoid figure, walking on his hands and feet stalked after him, using the wooden supports across the roof to quickly gain on him, though the figure moved stealthily, so stealthily that Red didn't notice it at all.

As Red stopped so did the figure, Red looked around, he couldn't help shake the feeling he was being watched, slowly he leaned his head upwards to be met with the sight of a body leaping towards him, he leapt out of the way but it was too late, the figure slammed into his body, sending him staggering across the room and the fire axe flying out of his hand and away from his body. Red's body came to a stop when he slammed into a table roughly, knocking off a bright red toolbox on top of it, the contents of which dispursed across the floor.

Red sat up and regained his posture, the figure emerged in front of him, exposing himself to the small, now working light, above their heads and gave Red full view of him.

The figure was a tall, scrappy looking teen, dressed in a thick dark black vest, grey camouflaged cargo pants and wore a pair of tipless black gloves over his hands, his face was hidden behind his excessively long black hair, which stretched down to his neck.

"Who the hell are you?" Red asked as he got to his feet, moving his body away from the table and closer to the teen, the teen raised his head, shook the hair from his face and smirked, an animalistic smirk.

"I'm Lizard and _you're_ lunch meat" he said, his voice was deeply inhuman, sounding more like Red was talking with a cobra than a human being.

Red raised his fists and stared tauntingly at Lizard, Lizard smiled, drew his arms to his body, crossed them and with the squeezing of his knuckles, two thick bone-like blades shot out of the back of his forearms, Red raised his eyebrows in intrigue.

"It's lunch time!" Lizard said rushing towards Red, who stood waiting for Lizards advances.

Cain stood with his gun aimed at Slack's head, his finger slightly shaking on the trigger; he pushed the fear from his mind and moved his left arm to the underneath his right arm, steadying his handle on the pistol.

From where she stood, Slack reached behind her back slowly and pulled a long slender boomerang like device from her utility belt, this action went unnoticed by Cain, who stood with the gun still aimed at her head, his finger gripped the trigger as he prepared to squeeze it, ending Slack's life.

In a quick instance, that seemed to move in slow motion to the two teen's, Slack tossed the blade from behind her back at the same moment that Cain squeezed the trigger of his gun, the bullet flew through the air, as did the boomerang, which hit and knocked the bullet out of focus before spiralling through the air and coming to it's stop when it stabbed into the slide of Cain's gone, knocking it from his hand and sending it across the room.

Slack took this time to run at Cain, who stood defensively, as she reached him she punched her right arm forwards quickly, Cain, moving at lightning quick speed's, dodged the blow and moved behind Slack, before kicking her in the leg roughly, she fell to her knee and delivered a spiral kick backwards, a move intended to trip Cain, but Cain was much too quick and leapt over her leg before kicking her in the chest, with enough force to send her body sliding across the room.

'What's with this guy?' she thought to herself as she got to her feet, he moved faster than her, kicked harder than her, and from the looks of things had the same martial arts skills as her.

Cain rushed forwards, Slack stood defensively, ready to block any punch that Cain sent at her but Cain threw punches and kicks quicker than she could block them, this was seriously messed up, no one could best her in combat…well no one aside from Robin that was, but she'd only sparred with him.

Cain delivered a final kick to Slack's chest; this one knocked her back into the bookshelf, rattling the books above her head. She slumped down to the floor in what could be described as her defeat, though she wasn't unconscious, just extremely tired from the beating she'd received at the hands of the much too quick Cain.

Cain knelt do her level and smiled, the same smile that Hoffman smiled at her as he'd gotten her and her team to forcibly exit the building.

"Guess I'm just too good for you, huh?" He said as he got to his feet, suddenly the wail of police sirens shattered the otherwise peaceful soundlessness of the room, Cain looked around in a panic, somehow the cop's had managed to get through the barricades, he looked over at Slack, who was now fully unconscious.

He ran across the room to where his pistol sat on top of a pile of books, he grabbed it with his right hand, pulled the slide back again, arming another shot, should his first one have been messed up from the boomerang, and aimed the gun at Slack's head.

He held the gun pointed at her head for sometime before he realised, for whatever reason it was, he couldn't do it, he couldn't kill her, not because she was a Titan, but something about _her_, made him unable to due it, instead he tucked the gun back in it's holster and quickly darted out the room and down the hall towards where Fox was fighting Tag.

Down the hall from where Cain and Slack had just fought, Tag and Fox were having their own duel, well rather a violent game of Cat and Mouse, Fox would fire her greenish blasts at Tag, who would blink her eyes and teleport away, this had been going on for the past five to ten minutes and Fox was getting fed up with it.

As Tag appeared behind her, Fox spun around and blasted a bolt of greenish smoke at her, Tag disappeared and the blast hit a file cabinet, exploding it internally and forcing thousands of papers to fly across the room.

"We can play this game all day, cutie" She said as she fired yet again at where Tag had reappeared too, the blast again missed Tag and forced another cabinet to explode into a mass of papers.

"But I know one thing that'll get you to come out of your shell" she said aiming both her hands at Blizkid's unconscious figure, Tag, who had transported atop a tall cabinet behind Fox, gave a horrified look before blinking her eyes and reappearing in front of both Blizkid and Fox's arms.

"There you go. Smart, sexy and loyal to her friends, is there anything she can't do" Fox said with a smile, as she flirtatiously described Tag aloud, Tag blushed slightly and Fox smiled again.

"It pains me to do this to you sweetheart..it really does" She said raising her arms, Tag, who knew if she moved that Blizkid would get hit, and she couldn't bare to see the younger boy hurt. She lowered her head and awaited the blast, which came fast and hard, knocking her across the room forcefully, she finally stopped when she slammed into the cabinet behind her, her unconscious body landing next to Blizkid's.

"Common' Fox, We gotta go" Cain said rushing into the room, Fox turned towards him, smiled and turned her attention back towards the unconscious Tag, she blew her a kiss and uttered "Sorry" under her breath, both things went pretty much un-noticed by Cain, who stood constantly shifting his weight in the doorway.

"What about the others?" She asked, her concern for her friends outweighing her concern for herself, Cain sighed.

"The others can be replaced by others" He said with a smile "Now common'…we should go save Quake and Lizard".

Fox nodded her heads and exited out of the room with Cain, the two of them were now on their way to evacuate Quake.

Back in the vault, Lightlad aimed his right arm at Quake's face, Quake, who was halfway across the room, ran towards him with a rhino's speed and force, ripping tables and chairs in half as he decreased the distance between himself and Lightlad.

Lightlad centered his aim directly in between his forehead and jaw, a perfect hit to the eye's, he released a small yellow bolt which found it's way, like he'd predicted, perfectly into his eyes, causing Quake to stop his rush, shout out loud and fall to one knee directly in front of Lightlad, who stood aiming both arms, which both emitted a bright yellow glow, at Quake's head, he wasn't taking chances, Quake was a 350 pound juggernaut and should he get the chance he would crush Lightlad like a pancake.

"Give up?" He asked with a half panic and half serious voice, Quake's face light up with a smirk and he started to chuckle loudly.

"What's so funny?" Lightlad asked moving closer to Quake's body, Quake raised his head to face Lightlad before he began to speak.

"Your about to find out why they call me Quake!" he shouted, using the muscles in his legs he pushed himself off the ground and thrust his body at Lightlad's, Lightlad fired both of his charged blasts at Quake, both struck his back, burning through his costume and deep into his flesh, though Quake seemed unaffected by them.

As he reached Lightlad's body he wrapped his arms around his chest and tackled him roughly, slamming his body through the thick plaster wall strongly, Lightlad felt the full force of this blow and it hurt!

Quake continued to tackle Lightlad down the hall before slamming his body into a hard metal wall, stopping his tackling spree and creating a large body shaped dent in the wall, he released his grip on Lightlad, who fell to the floor in a violent clump, barely able to move through the intense amount of pain he was in.

He crawled across the floor in an effort to escape Quake, Quake shook his head roughly and turned to face the crawling Lightlad, he smiled a vicious smile and slowly walked towards Lightlad, who had managed to put a half a foot between him and Quake. Quake quickly reached the point where Lightlad had crawled, bent down and grabbed him by his leg and shoulder, using a portion of his strength he raised Lightlad's body above his head and using all of his strength he tossed Lightlad through a thick glass window attached to the upper part of the wall he'd been smashed into.

Lightlad crashed through the window fiercely, cutting his face, arms and wrists on the broken glass that the crash had created, his body stopping only when it slammed onto the floor, causing him much an intense amount of pain. Quake stood outside the room peering in through the broken window at Lightlad who lay sprawled across the floor, he smirked a fulfilled smirk, taking great pride in the damage he'd inflicted upon the younger teen, with one swift movement Quake kicked the door to the room open, slamming the door with such force that it fell of it's hinges.

Lightlad spun his head around to see Quake approaching him, he raised his left arm weakly at him and attempted to charge up a 'light-blast', Quake saw what he was doing, smirked and kicked Lightlad roughly in the chest, sending his body flying across the floor, his body only stopped when it slammed into the farthest wall of the room.

Lightlad coughed up a mouthful of blood, something he attributed to the broken ribs he could feel poking against his stomach, he was in terrible shape and Quake was taking no mercy on him. Slowly he sat himself up against the wall using his last bit of strength, he opened both his eyes to see Quake slowly approaching him, a smirk plastered on his face, there was no stopping him he'd just keep coming and coming, like a steroid induced Energizer Bunny

As Quake reached him Lightlad pondered his options, Quake would either kill him or leaving him wishing he had…either one was bad in his book.

Quake bent down to Lightlad's level, he grabbed Lightlad by the neck roughly, using both of his arms and brought him up to face him face-to-face before raising his body above his, he tightened his grip around Lightlad's neck, slowly draining both the air and life out of him, Lightlad used what little strength he had and focused it on breathing, he took a deep breath in, held it and breathed outwards before repeating his actions again, he was savouring each breath he took in knowing that they might be his last.

Quake saw that Lightlad was barely able to hold on to his own life, he smirked and slowly loosened his grip around his neck, Lightlad started panting heavily, like a animal in heat, Quake smiled and tightened his grip around Lightlad's neck, he wasn't done with him yet, he slammed Lightlad's body against the wall hard several times before holding him in another stranglehold, this one only lasted for several seconds as he could tell that Lightlad couldn't take any more, he smiled before dropping his body roughly on the ground.

Lightlad crawled up against the wall, unable to do much else but wait for what he assumed to be his impending doom at the hands of a vicious sadist, again Quake lowered himself to his level and faced him face-to-face, though this time he brought him up a foot by tugging at his hair.

"Now, maybe if you beg for your life, I'll have a little mercy" he said, Quake's grip on his hair was enough to make him want to beg for his life, but he had morals and decencies…at least as a hero.

"Bite me" Lightlad said spitting in Quake's face, Quake's smirk lowered into an angry frown as he used his wrist to wipe away the spit.

"Not wise" he said, he brought his knee backwards and with one quick movment slammed it into Lightlad's chest roughly, he grabbed Lightlad by the hair and slammed him head first into the floor using his hair as a 'handle', he pulled Lightlad up and proceeded to repeat his actions two more times, by the third time Lightlad's entire face was drenched in blood with streams coming from several deep gashes across his forehead as well as his nose, which appeared, and felt, like it was broken.

"How 'bout now?" Quake asked, Lightlad, in too much pain to do much else, spit blood into his face, Quake again frowned, sat Lightlad on his knee's and with one rough movement, elbowed him across the face with enough force to knock him out. The intensity of the blow sent his body slamming to the floor and cracked the solid marble frame, Quake smiled and raised his left foot above Lightlad's head, ready to stomp on his head, ending the teen's life with one swift movement.

"Quake, common' man let's go, the cops are all over this place" he heard Cain's voice call from behind him, Quake removed his foot from above Lightlad's head and turned towards his two team-mates.

"Another day Light-bright, another day" he said, his comment directed at Lightlad who lay bleeding on the floor, he smiled to himself and walked towards his team-mates.

"What about Lizard?" He asked, Cain and Fox smiled, that was were they were headed next.

Two hallways down from the trio of villians Red and Lizards stood in defensive poses, each one ready to take the other one down.

Lizard spun his body around quickly; thrusting both his arms forward in the process, his right arm blade narrowly missed striking Red's eye, instead slicing deeply into his left ear and temple causing him much pain. Lizard's left arm blade had more luck than his right as it was stabbed deeply through Red's right shoulder, forming a large hole in his arm.

Red gritted his teeth; his right shoulder hurt immensely as did his left ear, though that didn't hurt as much. Several drops of blood dripped off the tip of Lizard's blade and he smiled devilishly to himself, he slowly pulled the right blade, which was now smeared with Red's blood, from it's inflicted wound, and placed the blade on Red's head with enough force to inflict a deep wound, he dragged the blade across Red's forehead, all the way down to his right ear, before bringing the blade back behind his own head, in a stabbing position, aiming it at the middle of Red's forehead, a move that, if properly executed, would surely kill him.

"I'm afraid this is gonna be you're last tango, it's too bad, I thought you would have made a better opponent, instead you had to be a sissy opponent, couldn't even stand up to me-" Lizard began to taunt Red with a sly grin on his face.

Red, who at the moment was in an almost unbearable amount of pain, slowly lowered his head down towards the floor; a steady stream of blood bled from his wounds, rolled down his face and fell to the floor.

He looked up at what might be his last sight; he knew it would be if he didn't do something about it. Slowly he reached his left arm behind his body, stealthily, in an effort to find something he could repel Lizard with, his hand fumbled through broken glass, which upon grabbing proceeded to cut the tips of his fingers, he gritted his teeth harder and continued his search, all while Lizard continued to mock Red.

Finally Red's hand found something of momentary value; he now grappled the handle of a large screwdriver in his right palm, Red figured it must have fallen out of the toolbox that had fallen off the table during his and Lizards earlier fight. Red quickly spun the screwdriver around in his palm, moving the knife into a stabbing position and with one swift movement he thrust the 'blade' forwards, stabbing it deeply into something which was both soft and fleshy on Lizards body.

Lizard howled in pain and drew back his arms, relieving his blade from Red's shoulder, Red fell to his arms and knee's and quickly looked backwards to witness the damage he'd caused to Lizard.

Lizard limped backwards with both his blades concealed back in his arms, the screwdriver was stabbed deep into his left leg which caused him to limp instead of walk. He placed a bloody hand on the screwdrivers handle, grappled it roughly and with one hard tug pulled the entire length out of his leg, an impressive feat as the screwdriver's 'blade' looked to be at least seven inches long, pulling the 'blade' from his leg looked to cause him much pain, as his face was now swelled up into a look of pure anguish.

The entire 'blade' of the screwdriver was covered in blood, with blood now streaming freely from his left leg; he tossed the screwdriver across the room fiercely and stared angrily at Red.

"I'll kill you, you son-of-a-bitch!" he shouted as he limped quickly towards Red, both blades jetting out of his arms and a mad look in his eyes, from the one look in his eye's, Red could tell he was going to make good on his statement.

Red had neither the strength nor the energy to fight back against Lizard, instead he crawled across the floor to where the fire axe sat on the ground, Red grabbed it with one hand and using what little strength he had in his left arm pushed his body off the floor just in time to narrowly avoid being sliced through the back by one of Lizards blades. Red kicked his left foot forward, hitting Lizard directly in the chest, knocking him backwards slightly, buying Red a little time.

Lizard slammed a foot down on the floor, regaining his posture as he did, he aimed his blades at Red's chest and lunged his body forwards, this was a move that would surely kill him should he be able to fulfill it, in retaliation and an effort to save his own life, Red swung the axe forwards strongly, using the last bit of his strength. The move was accompanied by a rough feeling in the handle, like Red had just struck down a tree, as well as a disturbing "Slish" like noise which was followed by Lizard howl in pain.

Red tilted his head and caught a glimpse of Lizard drawing his right arm back, his wrist was now reduced to a bleeding stump, Red, not in the least bit concerned or disturbed by this, got to his feet and brought the axe up to his head, ready to finish Lizard if it insured his safety.

Lizard tucked his stump into the chest pocket of his vest, its blood forming a large red stain in the already dark black vest; he aimed his other blade at Red who stood with the axe in a striking position, ready to take Lizard's head off should he make another life threatening move on him. Lizard saw the intensity in Red's eyes, he really wasn't like the heroes he'd seen on the TV, unlike Robin, who he was sure by this point would have surely stopped and made sure Lizard was O.K., Red showed no discomfort or restraint in taking his life, something he was sure he'd truly do should he make another move on him.

"This ain't over" He said in a grim tone as he slowly began to shy into the shadowed part of the office, heading towards the exit. Red, still uneasy on his feet due to the pain, made an attempt after him, slowly he tried to rush after Lizard only to fall against the wall, he dragged his body across the wall, leaving a trail of thick red blood behind him, and finally, after several steps he collapsed on the floor, no longer possessing the strength to walk he fell on his back and painfully fell unconscious.

Several minutes past before Slack awoke, she felt a rough pain in the back of her head and rubbed it with her left arm, she felt a small gash on the back of her head, slowly she stared around the room, which was eerily empty, then a sudden feeling of guilt and anger surged through her body as she slowly began to recall what had happened, they'd lost, they, The Teen Titans, had lost their first 'official' fight, she swallowed and slowly headed out the exit and began her search for her fallen team-mates.

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Well That was my first action chapter...how'd I do?. Any way, It's time for another edition of The Captains Crazy Trivia, so saddle up the mule cause there happen to be many bits of trivia.

This Chapter underwent the most drastic number of changes of them all, I literally had to delete more than ten thousand words just to narrow it down to the form it's in today. Before I edited it, it was roughly twenty pages long and had at least twenty thousand words.

The Character of Cain is inspired by actor Stephen Dorf and his character of Deacon Frost in Blade. His name is inspired by the story of Cane and Abel (If you don't know the story, look it up on Wikipedia or Google).

Fox's character is inspired by actress Jessica Gower. At first she was named Chase, but that didn't sound right for Fox, so I changed it to Nova, which sounded to 'alien', so after hectic searching and planning I came up with the name Fox while watching an episode of CSI: Miami (Surprising isn't it) and her powers were inspired (Believe it or not) by the Plasma Pistol from Halo and Halo 2 (You know the one that shoots the green crap), which I came up with due to me only being able to play video games on my brothers old and working Xbox.

Also regarding Fox, if you couldn't tell, she was a little...'friendly' with Tag. Without ruining anything I can say that Fox is...well...let's just say she 'enjoys the company of women over that of men' shall we? whic'll of course lead to a sort of "Love Square" between her, Tag, Lightlad and a secret fourth wheel (Who's it gonna be?)

Quake started off life as a character named Ox, but that sounded too much like Fox and also made me think of Mammoth from the actual show, so I changed him to Quake. I also don't wanna spoil anything but I can say that Quake isn't aware of Fox's...'freindlyness' around women and...well I really don't wanna spoil it.

Lizard also went throug a series of name changes, he first started off as Savage, but that didn't sound to 'cool' so I changed it to Gecko, but I'm saving that name for another character. So now Lizard is Lizard. Also regarding Lizard, his character is heavily inspired by (and based on) Baraka from the Mortal Kombat fighting games, so if you thought he sounded familiar...that's why.

In case you were wondering, the reason Red and Lightlad are the two members of the team that get their asses kicked the most was because it only felt right that those two received the baddest beating. It felt weird and uncomfortable having Slack and Tag getting bruised up because they were women (Not that I'm a sexist...I just think women being beaten is a tad disturbing) and Blizkid's just a kid so I really didn't want him to get smashed through too many walls (Otherwise people'd think I advocate Child Beating...which I don't) So from this chapter forwards Red and Lightlad will be the 'punch magnets' of the team, Slack and Tag will have their fare share of bruises and cuts and Blizkid...well, we'll just have to wait and see won't we?

The fights scenes all came from my head, though I did get some inspiration for some of the fights from several sources. The fight between Lightlad and Quake was inspired by the Fight between Pluto and Doug in The Hills Have Eyes, so If you've seen it...there's a bit of trivia for ya. Red and Lizard's fight was pretty much from my mind, though the stabbing in the leg bit was inspired by a scene from a movie (Who's name I forgot) on Sci-Fi Chanell's: Friday Frightmare (It's a Canadian Channel so I don't know if any of you American readers get it or this refrence, in which case just ignore it as 'a rambling babble' like I'm sure you do the rest of the trivia).

Next Chapter: As our heroes recover from their defeat and take time to heal their wounds, they come up with a plan to exact revenge against the Reapers, though the idea of revenge might just be shared with Cain, who, under orders from Hoffman, will stop at nothing to kill The Titans.

Thanks for reading Chapter 6 Part 2 and hope you enjoyed it, until next time...and please don't forget to review.


	8. Chapter 8: Day One: Part 3

Summary: Follow the adventures of Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and Sev members of the newly organized Teen Titans H.C defending Hallow City from the perilous dangers it faces day-in-day-out. They'll have to face an assorted array of villains including, A psychotic gang lead by a team of super powered teens, a deadly bounty hunter with a mysterious link to one of the Titans, a bloodthirsty werewolf willing to turn any one in his way into a midnight snack and a multi billion dollar genetics corporation that's not all that it seems to be to name a few. But their most dangerous threats come from facing and overcoming each others assorted pasts as a team. Expect tons of guest appearances by the original Titans as well as other D.C. Comics heroes and villains.

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Welcome back folk's, it's your favorite author who carries the title of Captain. That's right, It's the one, the only...The Captain J.T. Wolfe! I'm back from the depths of snow covered Canada with a chapter so hot off the presses, I had to freeze my computer in liquid ice to stop it from overheating and melting the core of the earth. 

As Alway's, I'll be your host in wasting the next ten to fifteen minutes of your lives with an Up-To-Date report of what's been gone down in my hood during my extended absence.

Firstly: I apoligize for the lateness of this chapter (I usually try to make my chapters come out once a week, if not once every two weeks). I had stupid ass Exams which seriously slowed down the, Writing, editing and posting portions of this story. But now that Exams are over I've got all the time in the world to work on the next chapter, which, hopefully, should be completed and posted faster than this chapter was.

Secondly: This is the final (And I mean it this time) part of the three parter. It's double the lenght of the last chapter (Story wise) and was going to be split into two different parts, but I figured, you fine folks didn't want to wait another two weeks for Part 4, so here it is...the last part of my first Story Arc.

Thirdly: I'd like to thank, Splint, Dragontwin and Uberscribe for reviewing last chapter. You dude's can give yourselves a pat on the back knowing that you're reviews, do, and always will, keep this story alive.

Forthly: Of all the chapters I've written, I can honestly say this is one of my favorites (With the last chapter being the first), It's rich in Asskickin Action, dangerous levels of drama, a small slice of Romance and some a bigger slice of implied romance (You'll understand what I mean when you read it).

Fifthly: I'm look in for some idea's for 'extra' chapters. I already have the story pretty much mapped out but I need some 'filler' inbetween certain chapters to keep the flow going, otherwise this story will be over pretty damn quickly, and I know that's not what any you fine folks out there want. If you any ideas for the story please don't hesitate to tell me, You'll be getting full credit for the idea and the chapter will be dedicated in your honour. Any one willing to apply for the 'job' can either PM me their ideas or leave their idea in a review, all idea's are appreciated and encourged...and no this isn't a cheesy way for me to get reviews...though it is a good idea.

Sixthly: I saved the best news for last, that's right, I got my 360 fixed. Of course by Fixed what I really mean was I took it into Best Buy who gave me a free replacement one...I bring this up only because of how concerened I know you folks were last chapter. Well now you can rest at night knowing that my Xbox is fixed.

Finally: A disclaimer. I do not own any of the Teen Titans, Jump City or any other D.C. property owned in this non-profit work of fiction (As much as I'd like to). What I do own are the characters Slack, Red, Tag, Lightlad, Blizkid and Sev, Hallow City, the plot to this story and any other nonDC comics owned property in this chapter...unless it falls under other copyright issues, in which case I do not own it.

Now that that's over with. Please sit back, kick up ya' slack's and prepare to be blown away by Chapter 6: Part 3  
The Good with the Bad.

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Chapter 6: Part 3  
The Good with the Bad 

Lightlad awoke to the feeling of a warm, soft and wet object brush across his face gently, taking with it the intense pain that he felt across his face. Slowly and painfully opened his eyes to see Tag, with a semi-smile on her face, slowly brushing his face with a wet blood soaked cloth, he smiled at her as she cupped his chin in her hand and slowly stroked his cheek with her thumb.

"We almost lost you" She said softly, wiping the cloth across his forehead, he frowned at the pain this action caused as the cloth wiped over a large gash on his forehead.

"I was beat that bad?" he asked as Tag finished wiping away the blood on his forehead, she nodded lightly, to answer his question before helping him to sit up, allowing him to get a good look around at his current location.

He, as well as Tag, Red and Sev, were sitting and standing around what he assumed to be, the medical bay, this came idea came from the sight of medical cabinets along the long white and blue walls as well as the several beds covered by white sheets that lay across the room. Behind each bed stood a large clump of medical machines, each one Lightlad recognized, they were all used in hospitals to keep patients alive on life support.

To his right stood a shirtless Red, who gritting his teeth as Sev, who stood underneath his right arm, wrapping a thick white bandage around his shoulder slowly, the damage from the wound was hidden behind the thin layer of bandage already applied to his shoulder, though a thick red blood stain had drenched through part of the bandage.

"Do you really have to wrap them that tightly" He asked in an irritated tone, his shoulder already hurt beyond the point of belief and the bandage wrapped around it didn't help to decrease the pain.

"Sissy" Sev said, purposely wrapping the next layer of bandage tighter than the last, Red gritted his teeth and huffed heavily before turning his attention to Lightlad.

"I see your up" he said as Sev placed the remainder of the bandage on the counter beside Red and moved away from him and towards the sink. He spun the small knob and a small stream of steaming warm water came out from the tap, he placed both hand underneath the flow and washed the blood from both of them.

"How long was I out?" Lightlad asked rubbing the back of his head; Red grappled the bandages off the table, brought his tail up to his face and wrapped a thick layer of bandage around the newly created 'tip' of his tail, which was coated by a fleshy red gash.

"About an hour" Red said bringing his tail down to the floor, as it swept across the floor lightly, Red grinned inwardly.

"An hour and twenty two minutes" Tag corrected him lightly, Red rolled his eyes and grabbed a brown bandage off the table to his right, using both hands he applied the bandage to left side of his head where the damage to his temple had been received, he grinned as he placed the bandage on his head and groaned slightly at the pain it caused.

"Where are the rest of the team?" Lightlad asked as he attempted to get out of his bed, Tag quickly rushed to his side and lay him back in the bed gently, rubbing his forehead as she did, he smiled lightly and rested back in the bed.

"Blizkid's playing video games, I think he's trying to take his mind off of what happened. Slack…I think she's in her room, she said something earlier about it being 'her fault', but I don't know, that's just what I heard" Sev said, from where he stood Red gave Sev a questioning look before silently exiting the room.

To Lightlad's right Tag dabbed the crimson stained wash cloth in a small bucket of water by her feet. She squeezed the cloth tightly, ridding it of all the blood it had captured on his face, before running it over his left arm slowly.

"I'm gonna give you a shot that'll help with the healing" Sev said, he stood beside Red with both of his arms in the open medical cabinet above his head, he pulled down a small bin full of bottles, boxes and plastic syringes, he pulled out a syringe, stabbed it into one of the open bottles and withdrew a small amount of white bubbly liquid into the needle

"Arm please" Sev said, Lightlad looked at him questioningly, to his right Tag gave him a small nod, Lightlad sighed and reluctantly held his arm out.

"This might hurt" he said as he slowly began to insert the needle into one of his veins, Lightlad grinned at the pain it caused, he hated needles, seeing, touching or just being around them, it was a phobia that he'd lived with ever since he'd been given his first one as a child.

Sev continued to insert the needle's contents into Lightlad's arm; who began to feel the wounds across his body start to burn like Sev was holding a lighter underneath them. This new sensation hurt almost as much as when he'd first received them, he gritted his teeth as the burning feeling increased; increasing the amount of pain he was in at the moment.

"What the hell is in that?" Lightlad asked, trying to maintain a calm exterior as apposed to his energetic and pain filled interior, both feelings a cause of the burning sensation which continued to increase, causing him a great deal of pain.

"It's an experimental mix of antibiotics; adrenaline and pain killers…the combo should help heal your wounds quickly. According to the X-ray's we took earlier nothing inside you is broken, though your ribs are seriously fractured, this should heal them, I'd say, if you were up to it, you'd be able to fight again today" Sev said "Unfortunately this shot will stings like a mother for at least a good twenty to thirty minutes. The good news is it'll put you to sleep…which'll help with the healing" He added in as he withdrew the needle from Lightlad's arm, Lightlad sighed and relaxed in his bed, all of the sudden he was feeling extremely tired.

"See that wasn't too hard was it?" Tag said softly, Lightlad smirked and held himself back from saying something rude to her, which wasn't that hard of a task as he could hardly think of anything impolite to say to her, all he could think of were nice things, things that he'd not normally say around anyone but her.

"Yeah" was all he was able to muster up in response, Tag smiled and continued washing his wounds while he began to slowly doze off into a state of unconsciousness.

Meanwhile, three floors above the medical bay Slack sat on her bed with her head rested gently in her arms, her mind kept wrapping itself around various ideas, questions and theories that she had, questions like why didn't Cain kill her and the rest of them? And just who was Cain? Was Hoffman involved?

Suddenly the door to the room was wished open, bringing to her view the shadowed figure of Red standing in her doorway, he stood silently for a minute before Slack broke the awkward silence.

"You can come in if you'd like" Slack said standing up, from where he stood Red smiled and walked in slowly, entering the room exposed his body to the light, Slack saw the many bandages wrapped around his body and felt even more guilt for what she knew to be her fault.

"I just you'd want to know that Lightlad's up…Sev's fixing him as we speak. He should be battle ready soon" Red said taking a seat in a blue velvet chair that sat to the right of her bathroom. Slack smiled lightly, both at the good news and at Red.

Red looked around her room with a cat's curiosity, stopping every now and then to admire a piece of art on the walls or something that struck his fancy, which they're happened to be many of in the room.

"This is a nice place you have here" He said, complementing both her taste in room's as well as decorations, she smiled, again it was only lightly. Red saw that something was really upsetting her, and he knew exactly what it was.

"In case you were wondering, I came here to make sure you knew that this whole thing isn't your fault" Red said standing up in the chair and walking towards Slack was about to argue with him about how she could have done more, but Red cut her off, not rudely but with enough force for her to know that he wouldn't take her argument seriously.

"Slack, I know you think you could have done more, but there was nothing you, or any of us could have done…so please don't take it out on yourself. Take it from me, living with guilt over something you had no control over, It just tears you up inside and leaves you, well…..like me" Red said in a defeated and downtrodden tone of voice, similar to the tone of voice one would use after a tragedy.

Slack could tell two things from his statement: One, he used too, or still did, live with an unstable amount of guilt on his conscience, for what she couldn't be too sure, and Two: he was starting to express himself more, to get his feelings more out in the open, something she realized as a cause of her tutelage.

Slack smiled to herself, though unlike the previous two times, this was an actual, happy smile, she stared at Red for a minute, he sat starring frowningly at the floor, she smiled as she made her next move, quickly she wrapped her arms around his back and pulled him into a deep hugging embrace.

"Thanks for letting showing me the light" she said, Red nodded his head and smiled slightly.

"Any time" he said breaking off the hug gently before standing up and offering her a hand up, she graciously accepted and the two walked out of the room quietly, both stopping to stare at the other every five or so steps, though this action went unnoticed by the opposite for the entire duration of their walk.

Several hours passed by as Lightlad slept off his wounds, Tag was constantly switching between two places, the first was being directly by his side, to either wash away the remnants of his healing wounds, he'd constantly babble in his sleep, most of the things he said were the product of his sleepy composure, though some of the things he said in his sleep like state made her blush, one such statement, which Tag found both complementing and at the same time embarrassing, included a two sided conversation with himself regarding his team-mates, where he constantly called Tag "His Beautiful teleporter".

One floor above Tag and Lightlad's heads, Sev, Slack and Red sat around a blue tinted table going over the facts they'd learned from their encounter. On the table sat a small set of blueprints to Hallow City's First, a variety of photo's of each apprehended suspect from the crime scene and four blank photo's all four of which had names written in them.

"So, what do we know?" Sev asked as he went through the various photos of the perpetrators of the bank robbery, he thumbed through them quickly before tossing them on the table like a deck of cards.

"We know that this heist was intentional and probably created to draw us out" Red said grabbing one of the blank photos with "Lizard" written on it in permanent marker.

"We also know that four of the suspects, the ones with powers, escaped without taking any of the money in the safe" Slack added in.

"Right…so maybe they were just there to draw us…err….you guy's out. Maybe the money was a bonus for them and since the cops showed up they couldn't take it…just throwing things out here" Sev said.

"We also have some names….Cain, Lizard, Fox and I think Lightlad said something about someone named "Quake" in one of his rants" Sev said picking each blank picture off the table and making a square with their pictures.

"You try putting any of their names in the computer database?" Red asked. Sev looked dumbfounded.

"No I did not" he said in a dumbfounded tone of voice, why hadn't he thought of that?

"Well…" Red said, Sev smiled and slid his chair towards the 'crime-puter' and quickly dashed his fingers across the black keyboard, he sat for a moment, tapping his fingers loudly on the table in front of him while the computer loaded his search.

Several minutes passed before the computer loaded a bright white page in the form of an online I.D card, Sev quickly scanned over the 'card', reading each important highlight he found in the text, he finished reading quickly and pressed a small white button on the otherwise black keyboard.

To the left of Slack and Red a small white printer was brought to life and a series of white papers began to eject from its core, bringing with them a 'breee-breee-breee' like sound.

The files finished printing shortly after they'd started, Sev wheeled his chair to them, picked them up and laid them across the table, Slack and Red stared questioningly at him.

"Well?" Red asked, Lightlad sighed, rolled his eyes, picked up the first piece of paper and began to read it aloud.

"Name: Joseph Hoffman. Aliases: Cain, Kane. Age: 18. Criminal offences: Two counts of conspiracy to commit robbery, One count of attempted robbery and two counts of armed robbery….it also goes on to list his height, weight and eye colour, but I doubt you'd care to know about that" Sev said with a smirk.

From where she sat Slack smiled wholeheartedly and it showed on her face, which was bright up with a bright red glow, not a blush, but a glow of success, she'd just been told great news that could not only help her find Cain, but also link Hoffman to the crimes he'd committed.

"Now this one's a good one. Name: Preston Hayes. Aliases: Ox, Quake. Age: 20. Criminal offences: Two counts of armed robbery, Two counts attempted robbery and three cases of assault, one of which was with a deadly weapon….this guy isn't playing around" Sev said reading the second paper from the printer.

Red could definitely understand why Lightlad was in the medical bay recovering from multiple body wounds and fractures; his opponent was a crazed psychopath.

"Another one. Name: Jennifer Fawkes. Aliases: Fox. Age: 18. Criminal offences: One counts of armed robbery, one count of attempted robbery and…uh, one count of sexual assault…against a uh, eighteen year old female bank teller…though the charge was apparently dismissed shortly after it went to court…doesn't say why that was, though" Sev said, which he found hard to do, sexual assault was a serious thing, not that armed robbery wasn't, but sexual assault was practically rape…thought it was tossed out.

He wondered why this was to himself as he tossed the paper into the pile of three which sat neatly on the table. He picked up the final paper and began to read it.

"Name: William "Willy" Pariah. Aliases: Lizard, Los Lobos…don't really get that one-"Sev said in confusion before continuing to read Lizard's paper. "-Age: 18. Criminal offences: One count of armed robbery, one count attempted robbery and three counts of assault with a deadly weapon" Sev read before dropping the paper to the floor.

"Something they all have in common, aside from them all working together, is that they were all bailed out of jail, on each offence, by none other than our suit and tie wearing friend, Dennis Hoffman" Sev said, Slack smiled again at the knowledge they'd just learned.

"Well, now we know what were up against a group of practically untouchable rejects who rob, steal, rape and assault those who stand in their way...luck surely does favour us" Red said sarcastically with a smile, Slack couldn't help but smile at his smarmy comment, Red noticed this and his smile only increased.

Just then the noise of three sets of feet slowly walking towards the trio could be heard, all three turned their heads to face the bringer of the noise.

In the hallway to the right of the table stood Tag and Blizkid with their arms wrapped around Lightlad in an effort to support him, Lightlad was without his costume, instead he wore a pair of blue jeans and a baggy T-shirt, which concealed the bandages wrapped around his waist.

"How are you feeling?" Slack asked, Lightlad gave her a fake thumb's up before speaking.

"Like a rematch" he said cockily, Slack smirked at his enthusiasm, straight out of the medical bay and he was already looking for a rematch…she had to admire commitment to the team.

"Is that wise?" Slack asked Sev. Sev shrugged his shoulders, stared quickly at Lightlad, then at Slack and spoke up.

"The narcotics I gave him should rapidly heal his body for the next twelve hours, but I can't advise him to take drastic movements or hard landings, his ribs are still very fragile and will take the longest time to heal out of his whole body. Again I wouldn't advise it, but since I'm sure I can't stop you, I'll just say don't pull any John Woo jumps. You're not Superman you know" Sev said, Lightlad smiled and turned to Tag.

"I can be ready in twenty minutes" He said, Tag frowned, she didn't want him to get any more injured, but like Sev said and she knew, if he wanted to do something there was no stopping him, she looked at him and nodded her head slightly.

"Alright!" he said in enthusiasm before quickly rushing off towards the elevator.

At the same time both Blizkid and Tag grabbed seats around the table, Blizkid sitting beside Red and Tag beside Slack, Red smirked at Blizkid before rubbing his hair roughly.

"Were have you been?" he asked as he finished roughing up Blizkid's hair, Blizkid brushed Red's hand off his head lightly.

"I was playing video games" he said, Red smiled and brought his hand back to his body.

"Kid, you sure you're up to this?" he asked in a serious tone, he'd seen Blizkid get hurt once and didn't wish to see a scene like that again. Blizkid was like the teams mascot, he was cute and cuddly, not rough and unlovable like himself, and he hated to see him as the enemy's punching bag.

"Yeah, I can do it" Blizkid said with pride in his voice. Red placed a hand on his shoulder and looked him dead in the eye, his face no longer held the cocky and conceited look it had before, but it a serious one it its place.

"Do me a favour; try not to get hurt…OK?" Red asked, in response Blizkid nodded his head.

"I'll try" Blizkid said, Red smiled.

"That's all I ask" Red said.

Half an hour later Lightlad came bolting through of the elevator doors, dressed in a fresh costume and sporting a cocky and challenging look on his face.

"So, we gonna do this? Cause I'm lookin' to show Quake a rematch that'll have him crying to what ever sorry sons-of-bitches call him 'son'." he said with an over abundance of enthusiasm, cockiness and sarcasm in his voice.

"Slow down they're Rocky. We still haven't figured where the hell their staying at" Red said calming Lightlad down a tad, though he still held considerable amount of anger and enthusiasm in his movements.

"Sev, see if you can find any thing under the name Joseph Hoffman" Slack said, Sev smiled and tapped the keys of his keyboard, this went on for a short time before a blank white page was brought up on the screen. Sev quickly skimmed it over, highlighted a few sections of the page and spun his chair around to face the others.

"Looks like our Mr. Hoffman Jr. Recently purchased a lease on one: Five Forty One Evergreen Terrace. A nice luxurious two storied office, warehouse crossover, which previously belonged to the now defunct Trevor Miller Company" Sev said.

From where she sat Slack smiled, they had a place, a practical date and a target, now all they needed was a heads-up.

"Is there any way you could check to see if that's where their staying right now?" Slack asked, Sev rolled his chair backwards towards the computer, tapped a few buttons on his keyboard and pasted the copied information from the previous site into a search engine, this action brought up a black screen, Sev stared at it intently for a moment before ushering the others closer to him with his index and middle finger.

Onscreen a large black distilled image of an office building could be seen, the office had a small hanger like warehouse attached to the side of the building as well as a two story office beside it, from what they could see, it appeared as if the two were connected to each other.

"This is a plain view of the building using the Omega One Satellite orbiting Hallow City. If I use the infrared scanners we should be able to get a thermal vision of the inside of the building. People and any objects warm enough, should emit a reddish yellow glow, any thing cold will remain a solid blue. It's like that movie Predator" Sev said before tapping a few buttons on the keyboard, suddenly the entire picture became distilled and the dark black colour image on the screen changed to a bright wavy blue, with several dozen watery specs of yellow and red, four of which were tall and continuously moved around the building.

"Now several of the yellow and red specs look small enough to be computers or small electronics, which, in theory, should emit a large enough amount of heat for them to be picked up, as for these four bigger blobs…their definitely human. My best guess would be that it's them" Sev said.

"So, we have a target, what do we do next?" Red asked.

"Next, we go get the bad guys" Slack said with a smile.

The darkness of the Ten O'clock night hid the large white and blue office building and shielded it from the eyes of any of those who watched the area, replacing it's image with a light black and dark blue building that looked less like an office and more like a small prison complex. The building was surrounded by a silver wire framed fence which stretched a good twelve feet up and was covered by a series of sharp round wires, rendering the fence un-climbable. The night also hid the halfway open grey garage door which led into the warehouse.

The Inside of the building was a complete mess, tables and cubicle walls were tossed into a pile in the corner of the room, leaving only five of the once twelve cubicles still standing and operational. Hundreds of pieces of white paper lay sprawled across the floor, like artificial snow covering the artificial grass, which in this case would be the carpet and to top it off several bookshelves lay on the floor tarnished and practically destroyed with the books they held tossed across the top of the shelves.

In a small office attached to the back of the room, Cain stood behind a thick wooden desk which had "Boss Man" and an arrow pointing towards him, crudely carved into the surface of the desk, the handiwork of one of Lizards blades.

Cain held a small black cell phone in his left hand, the device rested against his ear gently; his face had a large angered grin on it, he listened half-heartedly as his uncle and boss, Dennis Hoffman, shouted at him for his earlier failure.

"Yes-…I understand but-, Ok well at least-….Look I realize it's my fault but what could I d-…." Cain said into the device, being constantly cut off by Hoffman whose abusive and abrasive voice came out of the other end of the phone loud enough that Fox, who sat in one of the three leather recliners in the room, could hear his voice from the other end of the line.

"Ok-Ok….yeah….alright bye" Cain said pressing the off button on his phone before tossing it angrily across the room.

"Damn it! Son-of-a-bitch!" he shouted in anger, kicking his right foot into the second leather recliner, which spun across the room before slamming into a half empty book shelf, knocking books off of it.

Outside his door Quake sat in a large leather chair with his feet up and rested gently on a tall lavender desk, his attention was turned towards a large flat screen TV atop the desk which displayed a series of bright and red flashes along with loud Hip-Hop music.

Suddenly the door to the office was slammed open harshly, strong enough for the small glass window to shatter against the wall as it did. Cain emerged from the room angrily. Quake turned his head towards him and raised his eyebrows.

"Trouble?" he asked, Cain glared angrily at him for a moment.

"What do you think" He said angrily before stomping across the room in a violent pace, he made it to a book shelf, placed a hand on the side of it and with one quick movement threw the shelf to the ground, shaking the room with the blow.

"Maybe you should calm down" Quake suggested from where he sat, Cain glared at him.

"You think" He said sarcastically, Quake gave a concerned look before turning his attention away from Cain, back towards the TV. Sometimes all Cain needed to do was vent his anger, something Quake did by brawling with Lizard.

"God damn Hoffman, always thinking about himself, I could have died, and does he care, no! And those god damn Titans, why couldn't I have just killed them, It would of made things so much easier" He shouted in anger, his comments directed at no one in particular.

"You might just get another chance to" Lizard's snake like voice hissed from the shadowed corner of the room. Cain turned his attention towards the area, Lizard sat in a brown arm chair with his head tilted out the window, as Cain approached him he pointed his arm towards a series of large black shadows which smoothly moved across the metal ground surrounding the complex.

"How can you tell it's them?" He asked, Lizard smirked, exposing his sharp fanged teeth, a sight that would disgust most who looked upon him. Fortunately Cain and the others had grown accustomed to it over the period of time in which he'd had them.

"Good eyes" He hissed sinisterly, Cain watched as Lizards pupils narrowed in on the teens, narrowing down to two small slits which resembled cat's eyes.

"It's them alright" he said, his eyes focused on a larger shadow which, unbeknownst to Cain, belonged to the body of Red, Lizard growled to himself as he rubbed his right hand over his left arm.

"Great they found us" Cain said tossing his arms into the air in defeat, this couldn't get any worse, not only was Hoffman not paying his Cruz or his men's bail all of whom had been captured during the police's raid on the bank, but he was threatening to cut off his source of payment, meaning The Reapers would have to find another source of income.

"We could take 'em" Quake said from his seat, both Lizard and Cain turned towards him, Cain smiled, recalling his earlier fight with Slack, he'd certainly be able to pull off those kinds of moves again and this time he wouldn't hesitate to kill her.

"Well then if were going to take them, we're going to need a plan won't we?" Cain said with a malicious smile, the other two villains followed suit and smiled along with him.

The Titans stood at the entrance to the building; a large grey metal door was the only object standing between them and their enemies, Slack looked at the door questioningly, it had "Reapers Turf" crudely spray painted on it with dark red spray paint.

"I wonder who lives here" Lightlad said sarcastically, Red smirked and placed a palm on the door roughly, he pushed his palm against the door to test how thick the door was. He only had to push for a second before he was met with heavy resistance; this door was not only thick but blocked from the inside.

"Well, were not getting in from here any time soon" Red said removing his hand from the door, Slack stared silently at Red for a minute, then tilted her head to the left, where she was met with the sight of the back entrance.

"Hey, Tag couldn't you like teleport us inside?" Lightlad asked, from where she stood Tag gently shook her head from side to side.

"My powers don't work like that" she said softly, the others stood looking at her curiously.

"I can only teleport to where I can see, otherwise I could land us in the middle of nowhere, or a wall, or worse" she said, saying the last part extremely quietly.

"Me and Lightlad will go around back and see if we can find you three another entrance inside" Red said, Lightlad stared questioningly at him.

"We will?" He asked, Red turned to face him and nodded.

"Yeah, we will" he said, Lightlad rolled his eyes and looked at Tag, who had a pleading look upon her face, he sighed and raised his head.

"Alright, we'll do it" he said, Red smiled.

"Besides, what's the worst that could happen?" Red asked, Lightlad rolled his eyes, he could think of at least ten things that could happen and those just involved the two of them being alone with Red.

As the two walked to the other side of the building Slack, Tag and Blizkid began looking for another way into the building, they turned a corner and came to a small parking lot, with several small cars, all of which were destroyed beyond the point of repair as well as heavily vandalized.

The group walked through the parking lot slowly, as they continued past several of the destroyed and vandalized cars they began to feel the eerie feeling of being watched, which Slack could tell was the case, though she didn't want to draw attention to the fact that she knew, instead she continued to walk through the parking lot, looking for a second entrance into the building.

On the opposite side of the building, Red and Lightlad stood before a half opened steel garage door which led to the inside of the dark and chillingly empty warehouse. The room, as far as the two could see, was dark and notably empty. Red knelt below the door to get a better look on the inside, his nocturnal vision being of great help at the moment.

Inside he saw various signs of abandonment, a large turned over black shelf, dozens of torn brown boxes and hundreds of damp papers scattered along the solid concrete floor. Red ducked his head under the door and in an instant vanished into the darkness; Lightlad followed this action, though more cautiously than Red had done, who knew what was inside there, there could be rats, spiders or worse….Quake.

Lightlad finished traveling into the warehouse and raised his body; he now stood in a completely dark and empty room, with only the light of the outside lamppost illuminating the floor of the room. He looked around for Red, who stood several steps in front of him, deeper into the darkness of the warehouse; he turned around to face Lightlad and frowned.

"Hurry the hell up" he said waving his arm in front of him, Lightlad was ready to give Red the middle finger when he began staring oddly at him, Red saw this and returned the odd stare.

"What?" he asked, just then a pair of thick arms shot out of the darkness and grappled Red's throat, strangling him roughly, before the arms hoisted him into the air.

From the darkness of the warehouse emerged Quake, who held onto Red' neck with both of his large fists, he smiled at Red, who tried to pry the giants fingers from around his neck, Quake only smirked and with one swift movement, drew his arms, and Red's body, back to his own body, before tossing him violently across the room.

Red flew in the air for a minute before landing roughly on the hard concrete floor; he attempted to stand up when a pair of thick blades struck into the small space of land beside both sides of the body, forming an 'X' shape which pinned him to the ground. Red tilted his head upwards to be met with the sight of Lizard's smirking face.

"Miss me?" he asked, Red grinned at him before kicking his left foot upwards, his foot connected with the top of Lizard's head knocking him backwards and loosening his blade's grip around Red's body, Red crawled out from underneath the blades and stood up quickly. Lizard pulled his blades from the ground and stood up so that the two were now face-to-face, something which made Red feel slightly uncomfortable as Lizard smelt like a mix of decaying flesh and, curiously, air freshener.

"I seem to remember you being shorter in the 'right arm' region last time we met" Red said with a smirk, Lizard grinned and brought his right arm up to in front of Red's face.

"You can slice him. You can dice him. But Lizard will just keep on coming" he said, gripping his fingers into a fist as the thick bone blade shot out of his forearm.

"Well then, I guess this time I'm gonna have to do more than slice and dice you" Red said.

Lizard brought his left knee behind his back and with one quick movement shot it out in front of him, kneeing Red in the stomach roughly; Red took several steps backwards and gripped his chest. Lizard swung his left blade horizontally at Red's throat, a move that if it succeeded would surely kill him, Red leaned back in time for the blade to narrowly avoid slicing his throat open, he regained his posture and kicked Lizard in the side of his chest, Lizard growled and swung both arms backwards, the left arm blade missing Red entirely, but the right arm blade slashed his right bicep, Red gritted his teeth and covered the wound with his right hand.

Lizard smirked and grabbed Red's head with both arms, Red punched his fists into Lizards chest as Lizard began to swing him around violently, finally Lizard let go of Red who now stood in a daze. Lizard smirked and kicked his left foot forwards, slamming it into Red's chest, a move which knocked the dazed Red several steps backwards.

Lizard took this time to rush forwards, both blades aimed at Red, Red managed to regain his posture in time to dodge Lizard stabbing his blades into his chest, instead Lizard's blades missed and impaled a large wooden box, rendering him stuck against the box. Red reached above his head and grappled the handle to a large metal box atop the shelf to the right of him, at the same time Lizard pulled his blades from the crate. Lizard took a swing with his right arm, the tip of his blade slicing lightly into Red's stomach; Red groaned and swung the box downwards, aiming it at Lizard's head. The box hit him on the top of the head with enough force to knock him to the floor as well as diminish the box into several metal scraps.

Meanwhile Lightlad had managed to slow Quakes assent on him by repeatedly blasting him with light-blasts, all of which seemed to have little to no affect on him, other than slowing him down.

Quake now stood before Lightlad, who aimed his hand at his head and fired a light blast, which burnt deep into Quake's shoulder, Quake, unaffected by the blast, smirked and shook his head sideways slowly; Lightlad swallowed back his fear as Quake dug his fingers into a fist. Quake swung his right arm forwards, punching Lightlad hard in the stomach, Lightlad coughed heavily and fell to one knee, Quake smiled and grappling him by the shoulders, he proceeded to lift him up into the air, Lightlad fought to break free but Quake only smiled and tossed him backwards strongly.

Lightlad flew like a rag doll through the air, as he flew he turned his head sideways to see Red give him a sympathetic look before tilting his head back towards Lizard.

Finally Lightlad's body came to a stop, slamming through a weak wooden door, cracking its wooden frame into several dozen splinters. Lightlad coughed heavily and tried to sturdy himself out, from what he could tell he was now in the office part of the building. Across the floor lay dozens of computer parts, monitors, computer base stations, keyboards, the works.

Lightlad scrambled to his feet and spun around to see Quake slowly walking towards him, Lightlad bent down and grabbed two of the monitors, one in each hand, before he flung the first one at Quake, the monitor spiralled through the air for a short time before it slammed into his Quake's left bicep, and falling to the floor roughly. It seemed not to cause him any damage at all as he did little more than flinch as it came in contact with his chest, he smirked and stomped his right foot through the monitor.

Lightlad pulled the second monitor behind his back, this time he was going to make sure he damaged Quake, he tossed it violently at Quake, who smirked, held his left hand out and managed to catch the monitor in it, Lightlad sighed, he really hated this part.

Back outside Slack, Tag and Blizkid continued through the parking lot, when a beam of greenish fog collided with Slack's waist, sending her flying towards one of the defaced cars, her body skidding on the hard concrete of the building, scrapping and damaging the back of her costume in the process.

Tag and Blizkid turned their heads towards the source of the blast, in the middle of the parking lot stood a grinning Fox, with bright green fog glowing from her arms.

"Well, hello again sweetie" she said in a cheery voice. Tag's face light up with a slight blush, though she tried to pretend like it hadn't. Behind her Blizkid's fore arms began to turn an icy blue and a small white mist began to rise from his arms.

"Don't even think about it!" she spat at Blizkid who stood with his arms at his sides. Fox moved her right arm in front of her, aiming her now green glowing arm directly at Blizkid's chest, he stood looking at her with a mix of a smirk and a smile, Fox glared angrily before firing the green fog at Blizkid.

Blizkid brought both arms in front of him as the blast drew closer; suddenly the white fog coming from his arms fell to the ground, summoning up a large block of ice the size of a refrigerator, the block acted as a shield protecting his body from the haze like blast, the blast instead hit the block of ice, causing the block to emit a bright green glow before exploding into hundreds of small ice shards.

Fox frowned, she hadn't expected him to do that, or much else but fall to the ground for the matter. She turned her attention towards Tag, who smiled at Blizkid's ability to protect himself; Fox proceeded to aim her arm at Blizkid again and began firing at him again, Blizkid waved his arms in a spectacle much like the way a conductor conducts his symphony, with the Ice being his instruments, accompanying his arm swing's with a solid form, each arm swing would create a long slender line of ice which would protect Blizkid from being blasted by Fox's projectiles.

Back across the parking lot, Slack began to get to her feet, having witnessed the ongoing fight between Tag, Fox and Blizkid, she knew it was up to her to do all she could to help the duo. As she got to her feet she heard a 'click' like noise from behind her, she turned around slowly to come face-to-face with the long slender gold tinted barrel of Cain's trademark firearm. Looking past the pistol she could see Cain with a smirk on his face.

"We gotta stop meeting like this, angel" he said.

Back in the warehouse, Red leant over the, presumably, unconscious Lizard's body, using extreme caution as he did, who knew what Lizard might do if he was playing possum. He came face-to-hideous face with Lizard, placed a hand on his forehead and tapped him gently, making sure he was unconscious before he would turn around and help Lightlad.

As he finished prodding Lizards head with his forefinger he began to get up, suddenly Lizards eyes shot open, startling Red. Lizard drew both arms in front of him and stabbed them forwards, Red, completely un-expecting this quick action, fell victim to one of the two blades, which stabbed through his left shin, the other, fortunately, missed it's intended target of Red's kneecap.

Red groaned in pain as Lizard pulled the second blade back towards his body, before stabbing it at Red's left shoulder, Red, expecting this move, grabbed the blade by it's hilt and used it to pull Lizard's body upwards. Lizard panicked as Red brought his body up to face his. Red kicked Lizard in the stomach strongly, knocking Lizard backwards, and freeing the blade from Red's shin painfully, Red groaned loudly as the blade was forcibly removed from his leg. Lizard attempted to regain his posture only to be met with the sight of Red leaping towards him, Red wrapped his arms around Lizard's back and tackled him, knocking him from the three foot high, four step tall, docking bay the duo had been fighting on.

Lizard crashed to the floor roughly, slamming his head on the hard cement floor as he did. A small pool of blood began to form around his head, which somewhat excited and somewhat frightened Red, he hadn't meant to kill Lizard, but then again, he did do what he had to in order to survive.

Red grappled Lizard's left wrist with his index and middle finger, checking for a pulse or any other sign of life, Red was relieved to find that Lizard's vein gave off a small 'thump-thump' a sign that his heart still beat and that Lizard still had life in him, Red sighed a relief filled sigh before standing up, a task he found difficult due to the pain in both his leg and chest, he gritted his teeth and took a step forwards using his left leg, which caused him a large amount of pain.

He took several more steps, moving towards the foot of the docking bay, he plopped down on the step, brought his left leg atop his right one and began examining it, he prodded the wound with his index, middle and fore finger, grinning as he did, from what he could tell, Lizard hadn't hit any arteries, veins or bones, which was lucky considering the size of Lizard's blade and how close it had come to slicing his main artery open, Red sighed again, kicked his left foot off his right leg and began to limp towards the office building.

Inside the office, Lightlad's luck hadn't faired much better than his team-mates, Quake had brought him to the floor by tossing both the monitor he'd thrown at him, as well as a solid glass display case, showcasing a autographed baseball bat, which had broken on impact with Lightlad's chest, scrapping his costume open and knocking him to the ground, it also launched the solid wood bat across the floor, opposite his body.

As Quake approached Lightlad's body, he began to feel the intense pain coming from his ribs increase, he sighed and closed his eyes, figuring the less he could see the worse off he would be.

"I'm gonna finish you off once and for all" Quake said grabbing Lightlad by the soft flesh around his damaged ribs and raising his body above his head, slamming the top of Lightlad's head on a large florescent light which hung loosely from the ceiling.

Lightlad opened his eyes, cringed in pain and tried his hardest not to concentrate on Quake's increasing squeeze on his ribs, he was like an anaconda, the kind of snake that squeezes the life out of its prey before devouring them in a single swallow.

He knew from where he was being held he couldn't manage to kick his opponent, his legs we're being blocked by Quake's tree trunk like arms; he had very few options and no weapons at his disposal, this wasn't good.

Slowly he tilted his head upwards, the bright florescent light above his head blinded him momentarily, he squinted his eyes and saw, much to his delight, a way out. The closest pair of bolts holding on to the light, preventing it from swinging to the floor, were loose and could be easily pulled from their respective holders.

Lightlad reached above his head and grabbed onto the light tightly, Quake saw this, though Lightlad wasn't sure if he knew of his intended actions, which was a mistake on his part as Quake increased his grip around his ribs tenfold, Lightlad suppressed a cough and quickly moved his hands to the two bolts, he fumbled with them at first, they were drenched in some sort of grease which had managed to ruin his first and second attempt at grabbing onto them, finally on the third try his fingers were able to grasp the objects. He curled his fingers around the bolts and pulled them out of the light quickly, dropping the light slightly, his head being the only object standing in its downward swing, Lightlad moved his hands to the sides of the light and prepared to swing.

"Scream for me mutt!" Quake said as he again increased his grip on Lightlad's ever so fragile ribs, Lightlad suppressed a second cough of pain and smirked.

"How's this for screaming?" He asked, at that very moment he raised the light above his head and just as quickly swung it at Quake's body.

The light whished past his head quickly, continuously gaining speed before it slammed into Quake's head and chest, shattering the plastic frame and bursting both of the chemical filled bulbs on his body.

Quake screamed in pain and released his grip on Lightlad, who fell to the floor with a soft 'thud', the carpeting of the office cushioning his fall, be it only slightly.

Lightlad got to his hands and feet and quickly rushed down the rows of cubicles, he stopped momentarily to grab the wooden bat before ducking behind the last cubicle's wall, taking the time to plot his next course of action as well as heal from the sudden and strong pain in his waist.

Quake stumbled backwards in a pain filled stammer, his left side of his face was cut deeply, as was his chest and stomach, the shattered plastic 'glass' of the light had taken it's toll on him as he was sure some of his wounds would require stitching.

He placed a foot backwards to stop himself from falling over before he straightened himself out. His left eye was completely shut with a thick piece of broken plastic stabbed into the small space above his eye and below his eyebrow, he pried the plastic from his eye painfully and tossed it to the floor, he tried to open his left eye but found it an impossible task.

Lightlad hid behind the cubicle wall, his back pressed up heavily against the back wall of the box shaped working unit. He was panting in and out as he clutched the bat with two hands, ready for Quake to show up around the corner, his heart thumped madly in his chest, it felt like it would rip itself out if he didn't calm down. Finally after a minute of sitting and waiting he slowly began to calm down.

He turned his head around the corner and saw, much to his surprise, nothing, there was no enraged Quake stomping towards him, just an empty hallway, he swallowed, pressed the bat to the floor and used it as a cane to get to his feet, putting pressure on the bat and not his sore ribs.

He walked slowly around the corner, the bat pressed firmly in his hands, the wooden handle splintering his hands as he clutched it, he walked slowly and cautiously, step, look, step, look, that was how he proceeded down the isles of cubicles.

Soon, when he reached the last one, he felt a sense of relief, Quake was gone, he'd probably run off in pain when Lightlad had smashed the light over his head, he sighed in relief and lowered the baseball bat into his now relaxed right hand.

Just then he heard a loud, progressing stomping noise from the left of him, slowly he turned his head that way to see Quake rushing towards him, emerging from his hiding place, inside one of the last cubicles.

Lightlad brought the bat up to a position in which he could strike Quake with it, Quake continued to rush forwards, with Lightlad only increasing his chance at success as he did, finally Quake came within striking distance of the bat, Lightlad swung it horizontally with enough force to hit a home run, the bat collided with the side of Quakes waist, he grinned down at Lightlad as he slowly moved his left hand to the bat, Lightlad did little more than stare in awe as Quake pulled the bat from his grip. 'How could that blow not have hurt him?' was the only thing in Lightlad's head at the moment.

Quake picked up the bat, brought his knee up to chest level and, holding the bat in both hands, slammed it down on his knee, cracking it into two separate parts, leaving only a blunt end and a sharp handle. Quake tossed both ends away from his body; they rolled across the floor before hitting a cubicle wall, stopping their descent.

Quake grabbed Lightlad by the throat, Lightlad tried to break free but his attempts were cut short by Quake head butting Lightlad in the forehead, knocking Lightlad into a heavy daze, Quake lifted Lightlad high above his head and held him there, slowly squeezing the life from him as he drained his lungs of oxygen.

"This time I won't make the mistake of letting you live" he said as he increased his grip around Lightlad's neck, Lightlad, still in his heavy daze, looked down at Quake who held a look of malice, which quickly changed to a look of pain.

From behind him, Red, who'd stumbled into the room minutes prior, had seen the duo fighting…well Quake fighting, Lightlad was doing more of a 'loosing painfully' routine than fighting. He limped his way to the duo, and, knowing he stood no chance against Quake in his current disposition, grabbed the broken handle to the bat, which was made now into a large splintered weapon, and stabbed it deep into the back of Quake's left leg, a task which required most of his strength as Quake had legs like a thick oak tree.

Quake released his grip around Lightlad's neck, Lightlad fell to the floor for a second time and quickly got to his feet, taking a minute to regain both his breath as well as feeling in his neck, Meanwhile Quake had turned around, without pulling the handle from his leg, to face Red. He cupped his right hand with his left and swung both at Red's head, striking him in the jaw and knocking him to the floor.

Lightlad wrapped his palm around the back of the handle, the tip of which was now drenched in blood, and quickly pulled it from Quakes leg, gaining a loud groan. Quake turned around to face Lightlad, who stood with the handle clutched in both hands in a stabbing position, he smirked and began to wind his right arm behind his head, knowing full well that Lightlad wouldn't dare stab him; he didn't have the courage too.

Lightlad saw Quake's glare and intended action, suddenly and unexpectedly, he felt a surge of anger flow through his body, he was sick of being beaten, sick of getting tossed around and most of all sick of Quake.

Using what strength he could muster, Lightlad stabbed the handle forwards, plunging it deep into Quake's stomach, Quake let out a yelp and turned his head downwards, facing the handle which was stabbed deeply into his stomach, he looked up at Lightlad, who had a disturbed look on his face, the look coming from his previous action, he couldn't believe what he'd just done.

Quake fell to his knee's, his hand clutched the handle of the bat, with one swift movement he pulled the entire length from his stomach, he stared sleepily at Lightlad before falling flat on his face, his head landing a half a foot from Lightlad's feet.

From where he lay, Red slowly began to get to his feet; he rubbed his head and stared at Lightlad, who was still in shock over what he'd just done. Red stared first at Quake, then Lightlad, then, finally, the handle; he swallowed and turned his attention back to Lightlad.

"You O.K.?" he asked, Lightlad stood quietly for a minute before quietly turning his head up towards Red.

"Y-yeah" he said shakily. Red nodded his head and approached Lightlad, walking around Quake's body as he did. Like he'd done with Lizard, Red knelt beside the body and pressed his fingers into his wrist, again he was somewhat shocked to learn that there was a pulse, be it an irregular one, but a pulse none the less.

"Well, you'll be glad to know he's alive" Red said, Lightlad sighed heavily and wiped his right palm across his forehead, he didn't know what he'd have done if he'd killed Quake, sure he would have gotten away with it due to it being in self defence, but the guilt he'd have to live with would be just as much as a death sentence as the electric chair.

"So, what do you say we go help the girls?" Red asked. Lightlad took another look at Quake's body, he wasn't going to take Red's word for granted, he wanted to make sure he was truly alive, he watched as Quake's chest slowly raised and lowered, satisfied he turned on his heel to face Red and followed after his, for the time being any way, limping leader.

Across the building, in the parking lot, Slack slowly got to her feet with the barrel of Cain's gun aimed for her forehead, she knew that as quick and nimble as she may be, nothing was quicker than a speeding bullet….except for Superman that was.

"Nice move, sweetheart. Now tell your little friends to stop making asses of them selves and give up, otherwise you might just find yourself with two less kneecaps" Cain said moving closer to Slack. Slack noted two things about him and his current stance, the first: the hand he held the gun in was shaking, as if he were at odds with the idea of ending Slack's life. The Second: from where he was standing, Slack could easily disarm him with a swift roundhouse kick to his hand, which she decided was her next move.

Slack drew her right leg behind her back as Cain straightened his grip on the gun. As he finished adjusting his aim with the pistol Slack kicked her right foot forwards then upwards, striking Cain in the right hand fiercely, knocking the gun from his hand and forcing him to draw his hand back in pain.

"You little slag" he spat out, drawing his hand behind his back, Slack smirked and brought both fists in front of her face, ready to deliver a fierce two hit punch combo that would surely knock him unconscious.

From behind his back Cain reached his hand to the back of his pants where the thin black leather handle, Cain grappled his hand around the handle and pulled out a long, slender combat knife, the blade of which was roughly a foot in diameter. He brought the knife in front of his body and hunched over. He readied the knife into a slashing position and slowly circled Slack.

The two circled around each other, like a duo of vultures circling above a decaying carcass, Cain constantly swung the blade at Slack tauntingly, not intending to strike her but instead to scare her, though his advances hardly made her flinch in fear, instead they only inspired her to inflict more damage on the cocky teen.

Finally Cain made a serious move, rushing forwards and slashing the blade at Slack's chest, Slack twisted backwards in time to dodge the slash forcing Cain to strike empty air. From behind him, Slack kicked her foot forwards twice, the first kick striking Cain in the back and the second in the shin, bringing him to his knee. He spun around to face her, spiralled the blade in his hand, moving it upside down in his hand, and leapt at her, Slack dodged left, but not quickly enough as Cain managed to slash the back of her left hand.

Cain smirked as Slack drew her hand back, she reached into her utility belt and pulled out a small roll of black bandages, she unrolled a small length of the bandaged, tore it off and wrapped it around her hand tightly.

During that time, Cain had managed to rush across the parking lot, dodging the occasional burst of green or shard of ice coming from Fox, Blizkid and Tag's fight, and gotten a hold of his pistol, he raised it in his right hand, aimed it for Slack's forehead and was ready to squeeze the trigger when he heard the clanging of metal from behind him, he spun around with his hand still griped firmly around the gun, to be met face-to-fist with a large red fist, which slammed into his jaw and sent him stumbling several steps backwards.

Across from Cain, Slack and Red, Lightlad was helping Blizkid and Tag fighting Fox. Fox aimed her arms at Blizkid and Lightlad and fired two green blasts, the first blast hit Blizkid in the chest and forced him to the ground fiercely, Tag filled up with anger as Lightlad put a shield around the two, protecting them from the second of Fox's two shots.

As the shield came down Tag blinked her eyes and disappeared into a puff of white smoke, suddenly she reappeared in front of Fox, who smiled cheerfully at her, something which Lightlad noticed as both strange and oddly eerie.

"Hello Sunshine" Fox said cheerfully, playing off the fact that she'd just knocked unconscious her much younger teenaged enemy, again Tag felt a surge of anger, suddenly and quickly she acted on that small hiccup of anger that surged threw her body, punching Fox in the face with enough force to knock her onto the floor. Fox landed softly on her butt and looked up curiously at Tag, who, herself, looked shocked at what she'd done.

"What would you do that for?" she asked in disbelief as she got to her feet, Tag, again found the urge to punch the arrogant girl who stood before her, and like before, she followed through with that urge, punching her again in face, knocking Fox back lightly, she lifted up her head to reveal a small line of blood streaming from her nose. She wiped the blood away with her right hand before bringing it, and her left hand, together; slowly a green mist began to form around the two as she aimed it directly for Tag's chest, she smirked and was prepared to fire the blast at Tag when a beam of whitish ice slammed into the side of her body, knocking her to the floor and capturing her chest and knee's in a large square block of ice, which held her pinned to the hard cement floor of the parking lot.

Tag and Lightlad turned their heads to see Blizkid, standing with both of his arms at his sides, both were glowing white and giving off an excess of white smoke, which rose above their heads and slowly evaporated in the air. He released a deep breath and slowly began to calm his self down, the smoke around his arms slowly began to decrease and the white of his arms slowly reverted back into their natural or, rather, unnatural, blue colour the others had come accustomed to.

Cain slowly raised his head to be met with the sight of Red's fist again colliding with his face, sending him stumbling backwards several steps before being met with another of Red's brutally fierce moves, this one a sideways kick to the stomach that caused Cain to slam into one of the several defaced cars, denting the side of the vehicle severely. Cain lay against the vehicle, his arms sprawled across the roof and his chest and lower torso imbedded in a large dent in the side of the car, this guy really wasn't holding back like Slack was, he could see how Lizard had lost and arm to him. He spun around in time to dodge another one of Red's blows, this one an overhead two handed slam, that missed striking Cain's head by inches and instead dented the car's roof severely.

Cain spun out of the way of Red's reach, drew the pistol from it's holster in the back of his pants, and aimed it for Red's chest, Red, instead of showing signs of fear or panic, stood relatively calm. Behind him Slack stared at him with a worried and horrified glare, knowing that there was hardly anything she could do from where she was standing, she was to fear full to try to throw another one of her boomerangs at him, should, for what ever reason, the object missed, it would give Cain a chance to kill Red, And unfortunately, she was too close to use her built in grappling hook, located above her left and right wrists, to disarm him.

"You take another step and I'll blow your God damn head off, you red skinned freak!" Cain shouted cocking the gun with his thumb, Red stared at him tauntingly before taking a step forwards.

The gun trembled in Cain's hand as sweat streamed from his forehead, slowly he wiped it away with his left arm, swallowed and squeezed the trigger two times, the barrel of the gun exploded in a blaze of fire as the two bullets flew from it's tip. The bullets traveled through the air for a short second before coming into contact with their target.

The first bullet dug deep into Red's left shoulder, Red gritted his teeth and continued his advance on Cain, his shoulder hurt immensely and large flow of blood rushed forth from the fleshy wound, the second bullet found a better home than it's brother, digging deeply into Red's stomach, Red groaned out loud and stumbled several steps backwards before he landed with his back against the car nearest him, he slowly slumped down into a sitting position, grabbing his shoulder with his right hand as he did.

"Red!" Slack shouted in a mix of worry, fear and anger, she began to rush towards him, Cain took this time to his advantage and rushed the opposite direction, escaping from the occupied heroes, who all rushed towards Red's unconscious body. As Slack reached him she knelt down on one knee and grabbed his head gently.

"Can you hear me Red?" she asked, gently rubbing her fingers through his hair, Red groaned before opening his eyes and turning towards her.

"Cain" he muttered in a gruff whisper, Slack shook her head.

"Don't let him get away" Red said, attempting to get to his feet, Slack stopped him by sitting him down before she got to her own feet.

"Lightlad?" She asked, Lightlad, who stood beside Red, turned towards her, staring at her curiously.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Take care of him, ok?" She said, Lightlad nodded his head, got to his knee's and attempted his best to comfort Red, which was awkward for the others around him as he referenced many things Red had done in the past two day's they'd known each other, all of which gave Red a negative light and Lightlad a positive shine.

Cain rushed through the courtyard of the building, glancing behind him from time to time to see if Slack, or any of the others had caught up to him, though, so far luck had been in his favour.

He turned a corner quickly, practically tripping over his legs as he did, only to come face to face with a long silver wire fence, blocking him from his only exit. From what distance the others had gained on him, he could imagine he had little to no time to scale the thing, as if that wasn't enough, the greyish barbed wire he'd used to protect the building and its inhabitants safe from unruly eyes, would surely prevent him from climbing over the top of the building.

He paced for a short second before he heard the increasing sound of feet rushing towards him. From what he could tell it was only one pair of feet, so only one person, and from the lightness of the steps it was a female, either Slack or that other chick…what was her name?, Tag, that was it, or something stupid like that.

Quickly Cain ducked behind a duo of small metal barrels to the side of the building, he pulled the pistol from the back of his pants slowly, he heard whoever it was chasing him turn the corner and come face-to-face with the same silver wire framed fence he had just a second ago. Cain cocked the pistol and stood up quickly, slamming the gun forwards, the barrel aiming directly at Slack's forehead.

"Say goodbye. Bitch" He said with a smirk. Slack tensed up as he moved his finger from the barrel to the trigger, before squeezing it lightly. Instead of the mix of fire and searing pain Slack had expected to follow the gun's trigger being squeezed, she was left with nothing but the comforting sound of the empty gun's 'click-click' as the hammer struck nothing but air.

"Goodbye, bitch" Slack said roundhouse kicking Cain's hand, knocking the gun out of his hand once again. This time Slack wasn't taking any chances, just as quickly as she'd kicked the gun out of his hand, she spun around and kicked him in the face, he grabbed his face with his hands, which left his chest exposed, which just so happened to be Slack's next target, she spun around again and kicked Cain's chest strongly, knocking him off the ground for a slight second before he slammed his body into the thick cement wall of the building.

Cain's body slammed into the wall with enough force to shatter a thin layer of the cement, sending small chunks atop his body, which now lay on the floor. He groaned and tried to get to his feet, when he felt a foot atop his shoulder, preventing him from getting up, he groaned and fell flat on the ground.

"You're not going anywhere" Slack said, pulling a pair of circular handled handcuffs from a pouch on her utility belt. She knelt down, with her knee pressing into Cain's back strongly, earning a groan from him; she smiled lightly, grabbed his arms and attached the cuffs to his wrists, making sure to apply them tightly enough that he wouldn't be able to escape.

Slack grabbed Cain by his shoulders and pulled him up to his feet roughly, he was in too much pain to do anything else but be pushed along by Slack, as she transported him back to the buildings parking lot.

As she reached the parking lot, shoving Cain along with her, she saw that Red was awake, with Lightlad and Blizkid helping him to his feet, Slack rushed Cain forwards and approached Red, who was still struggling to get to his feet.

"Let me help you" she said gently, wrapping her right arm around his shoulder, allowing him to transfer some of his weight off of the wounds. Red groaned as he was helped to his feet, the pressure of his weight applied to his wounds, making him grit his teeth in pain. Being shot twice had taken its toll on him, as his entire stomach was numb from a mix of pain and the anti-biotic's Sev had told Lightlad to apply to his wounds, to stop them from catching an infection and to dull the pain.

To their right Cain stood with a smirk as he watched Red being helped along by Slack, he couldn't help but appreciate the damage he'd inflicted upon Red, taking great pride in the state of pain he was in at the moment.

"You two make a cute couple" He said in a sarcastic manner, from where she stood, Slack blushed slightly, Red had less of an embarrassed reaction to his comment, instead his face held a mixed emotion, that emotion was a mix between anger and irritation.

He growled lightly before throwing a strong punch at Cain's face, knocking Cain backwards and finally onto his back, Red smirked and rubbed his knuckles across his jacket as Cain's already broken nose began to resume bleeding.

Suddenly, the noise of police sirens was heard, the group turned their heads towards the direction of the noise. The formerly dark street that they'd taken to the building, slowly become illuminated with the bright red and blue glow of the police car's lights, all of which were headed in the direction of the building.

Among the half dozen black and blue police cars, with H.C.P.D. tagged on the car's doors, were two white, orange rimmed ambulances, a red Dodge Charger with dark black strips across the hood, and a black Ford truck with a set of 'decorative' bull horns atop the grill

The cars quickly pulled into the parking lot of the building, doors slammed open and dozens of bodies began to emerge from the vehicles, officers, dressed in entirely black uniforms, rushed into the office building with their weapons drawn, using extreme caution as they did.

From the black Ford truck emerged a tall bald headed white man; he looked to be within his forties or fifties and was dressed in an entirely black police uniform. The man had a large greyish brown moustache above his upper lip, and a small patch of grey hair underneath his lower lip. He ordered several of the officers around with a fierce southern accent, one which Slack guessed came from either a Texan or Alabaman descent, though it would be impossible for her to tell the difference under these circumstances.

He turned his attention towards the Titans and approached them quickly, as he did Slack noticed that he wore a black Kevlar vest over his uniform, the same kind of vest SWAT team members wore to prevent bullet wounds, as he approached the team he held his hand out.

"I'm Sergeant Gregory Scythes from the Hallow City Police Department; you might have met me at the earlier arrest, though I have to say if not, it's an honour to meet you now, Mrs.?" He asked as Slack shook his hand, Slack looked up at him, smiled kindly and replied.

"Slack" Slack said. Scythes smiled and nodded his head before sticking his hand in a pocket, he pulled out a large black cigar from a small pouch in his pocket, bit the tip of it and light a match off of his vest. Bringing the match up to the cigar he light the tip of it, took a deep puff and held it between two fingers before looking over the office building.

"It's a damn fine job you did here, Mrs Slack. Your friend Sev, phoned and said you might have needed backup, but I can tell that ain't the case" He said as he stuck the cigar back in his mouth; he turned his attention towards two officers, one a young white male with long Elvis-style sideburns and combed down brown hair, the other was a older officer of Latin descent with bright brown skin, he had a small goatee and short black hair. Both men sat on their squad car while their fellow officers rushed to and from the crime scene.

"Dobson, go get the detectives and tell them to meet me over here" Scythes ordered to the younger of the two officers, the officer, now known as Dobson, leapt off the car and rushed away from the group, heading towards the red and black striped Dodge Charger.

"Martinez…what the hell are you sitting around for? There's work to be done still!" Scythes shouted, the second of the two officers nodded and followed a series of officers into the building.

After a short moment Dobson reappeared with two trench coat clad men, the first was a tall bald headed African American man with a thin black goatee around his face and deep blue eyes. He was dressed in a dark black trench coat as well as a pair of black dress pants, white dress shirt and a black tie with the letters "B.M.F" printed on the tie sideways, Red smirked; he could guess what the abbreviation stood for.

The second man was a younger looking white male, he had a head full of combed down brown hair and a clean shaven face, he was dressed in a beige trench coat, brown dress pants, black un-tucked dress shirt and a red and yellow striped tie, tied loosely around his neck.

"Sergeant" the black man greeted with a nod, Scythes nodded his head also, before turning his attention towards the Titans.

"This is detective Jeremiah Brice and his partner Luke Patches" Scythes introduced him and his partner to the Titans, Brice held out his hand and Slack shook it gently, both smiled as they did before Slack broke off the handshake and shook detective Patches hand.

"So, you're the Titans?" he asked, he spoke with a slightly gruff and unconcerned voice, as apposed to his partner's deep, low pitched and actual concerned filled voice.

"That's right" Red said cutting in, Patches stared cockily at him, examining the red skinned teen that stood before him. The two were about the same height; with Red being perhaps a few inches taller than Patches, though that didn't seem to matter to him as he grinned at Red.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all" Brice cut in, preventing either of the two from making a comment about the other.

"It sure is" Patches said grinning his lips into a fake smile and nodding his head in agreement, this, like his smile, was a fake act of optimism and was obviously forced.

"We'll, I'm glad to see your taking so kindly to them Patches" Scythes joked as he chewed the tip of the cigar with his front teeth, Patches frowned, he didn't like Scythes' attitude towards police work, and he especially didn't like the quips that he made constantly.

"You know. We could clean up the rest of this mess, if you needed to get back to the Tower" Brice said, he, unlike his partner, was more than happy to help those who helped him and the city, and if what the papers said about the Titans was true, he had no problem helping them out.

"Yeah, you guys can take the rest of the night off, watch a movie, grab some popcorn, roast some marshmallows, have yourselves a little celebration party, leave us with all the paper work, take all of the credit for the arrest and get all of the media's attention that we deserve!" Patches quipped.

Brice shot him a 'shut the hell up' look, Patches frowned, reached into his trench coat's deep pocket and pulled out a small packet of cigarettes, he fumbled with the pack for a second before he shook one loose, placed it in his mouth and light the tip of it with a silver lighter.

"What my partner was trying to say is that, even though you're responsible for their capture, we're the ones who have to arrest them, which includes filling out the tedious paperwork…but hey that's our problem to worry about" Brice said with a smile, Patches, from where he stood, rolled his eyes and huffed loudly.

"Well, if you lot are gonna head back to your Tower, I'll be the first to say, I look forward to working with you lot in the future" Scythes said with a smile.

"Same here" Brice said before prodding Patches' shoulder, Patches stared at them for a minute before Brice again prodded his shoulder, he rolled his eyes.

"Yeah…it was _real_ fun" he said with a sarcastic emphasis on the word 'fun'.

The Titans walked away from Scythes and the two detectives and began moving through the crowd of police cars and ambulances, moving towards the T-Car. Officers constantly rushed past them without doing so much as batting an eye at them, which was weird, normally police officers acted cautiously and cockily around heroes, often making rude remarks behind their backs or attempting to act better than the heroes themselves, it was like the cops in Hallow City were immune to feeling inferior.

As they continued along, two white garbed men rushed in front of them, carrying a stretcher with a bloody Lizard laying on it, he moaned in pain as the men loaded him into the back of one of the ambulances. One of the white clothed men slapped his hand against the back of the truck before he and his partner got inside the ambulance with Lizard, they closed the doors loudly and the ambulance took off down the street, followed closely by the second ambulance, followed soon after by a duo of police cars.

The walk back to the T-car was short and quiet, with little more than Red and Lightlad complimenting each other about the damage they'd inflicted apon their targets and Tag telling Blizkid how proud she was of him for saving her from Fox, something which Blizkid fond immensely inspiring.

Slack led the way to the vehicle with Red following closely behind her, limping on his leg every second step he took. Lightlad walked to his right, acting as a spotter should he need it. It seemed weird to the others, but, for whatever reason it was, the two had bonded during their fights with their 'rivals', though there was no way of knowing if this new friendship would be permanent.

The group piled into the car quietly, Slack took over Red's duty as personal driver, with Red having to sit in the back due to his injuries, something he objected against, only to be convinced by a mix of Blizkid's pleading and Lightlad's dodgy comments about how 'Red couldn't drive with a messed up leg any how', Red grudgingly accepted the fact that he wasn't allowed to drive and got into the car with the others.

The ride home was as silent if not more so, than the walk to the car, no one spoke the entire length, with only the odd cough from Red acting as any sort of noise generated by any of the organic beings in the car. Despite the fact that this could be considered their first true victory, none of them felt like celebrating, not that they didn't deserve too, it was just…there was something about what had happened earlier, how almost each member had been closer to death in this one day then any other time in their lives…well for some of them, for some like Red and Slack, they'd faced dangers much worse than this in the past, besides, it was too late to celebrate anyway.

Several hours had passed by since the Titans arrived back at the tower. Across from their tower, Hoffman stood in his penthouse, gazing out the window at the large white 'T' shaped tower across from him and his building. He held a large brown cigar in his fingers and had a thin glass of liquor in his right hand. He moved the cigar to his mouth, took a long hard puff in of the flavourful tobacco, exhaled the smoke and moved the cigar back down to his waist level.

From behind him, the doors to his room were opened loudly and a series of footsteps began to approach him. He placed the glass on the table and turned around slowly, to be met with the sight of Bruno Beest standing before him, a frown on his already angered face.

"The police just phoned, you're nephew and his friends are in police custody. Bails set at a half a million each" he said, Hoffman sat in his chair, brought his free hand to his head and probed his temples with his forefinger and thumb, he exhaled sharply before looking up at Beest.

"I want them out" he said, Beest looked at him confusedly.

"That'll set you back two million dollars, sir. With all due respect, this company doesn't need the bad publicity your nephew's going to generate" he said with concern heavy in his voice, Hoffman again exhaled, he knew he shouldn't be making these kind of risks, his company needed the money now more than ever, if the media was going to pin the whole back fired plan on him, he'd need all the money he could get to divert their attention off of him and onto someone else.

"Just do it" he said angrily, Beest raised his eyebrows in a mix of confusion and a anger, but said nothing, instead he just nodded his head and walked out of the room silently.

Hoffman spun his chair around to face the tower, it stood on the edge of the city, lights gleaming brightly, continuously taunting him, like a giant middle finger in the middle of the city aimed right for him. He growled at both himself and the tower, before crushing the remainder of his cigar in his fingers.

"You may have won this time, but mark my words, it won't happen again" he said in anger, his comments directed at the tower itself, as if it could hear him, which it, and it's inhabitants, surely couldn't. Hoffman sighed, leaned back in his chair and pulled out a small brown box, he opened the box, pulled out a fresh brown cigar, placed it in-between his lips, struck a match off the table and light the tip of the cigar, he may need to eliminate the Titans, but first he'd have to come up with a plan.

He'd let them enjoy their success for a few days, as the old saying went "Be proud of your enemy's and enjoy their successes" and that's what Hoffman would do, at least until he could make a fool proof plan that was, then he'd strike without mercy, and make sure each one of them understood what messing around with Hoffman meant, he smiled to himself, he'd come up with a plan as soon as possible, and this time, he'd make sure there were no screw ups.

Back at the tower the team had relaxed their once tense filled bodies, having spent the last hour and a half being once again patched up by Sev, the only thing on their minds was taking a nice long break from all the stress filled work they'd done that day, and that was exactly what they did.

Tag, Lightlad, Blizkid and Sev all sat on the couch in the lounge, watching a movie on the large TV. Popcorn, stuffed animals and fluffy pillows littered the seats around them, each one fully deserved the brake they were taking at the moment and Slack fully supported the laid back mood the others were in, despite the fact that they had combat practice early in the morning the next day, but hey, they deserved a break after all the hard work they put in that day it was the least she could do.

Slack herself was nowhere to be seen in the tower, instead, she sat on the edge of the towers roof, her gaze focused on the dark city which stood before her, the dim light of the street lights and several light building's making the only light in the entire city, giving it an artistic like image, if she had a camera at the moment it would surely make a excellent picture.

Her mind continuously jumped from idea to idea, each one plaguing her with a different set of fears, such idea's included what retaliation Hoffman was planning at the moment, what exactly his previous plan was, and, surprisingly, what the other members of her team thought of her leading abilities, though the other two idea's didn't bug her as much as this one did.

She heard a pair of large thumping steps moving towards her, she turned around slowly to be met with a pair of darkish brown eyes, Red's eyes. He was dressed in a grey muscle shirt, with the outline of a large bandage wrapped around his stomach, stretching to around his left shoulder, both places being the injuries he'd received from his fight with Cain.

"Hey" he greeted with his usual mix of gruff optimism and light non-chalantness "Mind if I sit with you?". She shook her head sideways and moved across the bench, allowing him enough room on the bench to sit beside her; he accepted her offer and plopped down beside her.

"You know? We didn't do to bad on our first day. Hell, I bet Robin would be proud of how you handled things out there" he said, turning his head towards her, she shyly turned towards him with a friendly smile on her face.

"You really think so?" she asked, Red nodded his head.

"Hell yeah. Besides, it's not like his first mission went all too well either, I heard that he lost the tower to those Hive kids on his first 'official' mission …of course I did hear this from Kid Flash, so I don't really know how reliable this information is" he said. Slack smiled, for what ever reason it was, Slack found herself slowly becoming more and more friendly with Red, it was odd to her, but she felt like they shared a bond, like he connected with her, and for some strange reason, she liked it, she liked it a lot.

"It's nice out here" he said as his eyes ran across the sprawling concrete jungle that lay in front of him. Slack couldn't help but blush as he stretched his arm across the bench's back, so that, should he move it up an inch, it would wrap around her shoulder, though he didn't seem to notice, and if he did, didn't seem to mind.

"Yeah….it is, isn't it?" she said with a smile as she scooted closer to Red, she couldn't explain why, but somehow she felt like she needed to be closer to him. Like before, he, either, didn't notice this change, or, as Slack now believed, didn't feel embarrassed by the closeness between the two. From where he sat Red gave a little snicker.

"If today was this messed up, I can't wait to see what tomorrows gonna be like" he said with a smirk. Slack smiled, she was proud of his eagerness to face the next day, she thought for sure after everything that had happened this day he would be less than enthusiastic to go through another day of hell, but here he was, telling her all about how he looked forwards to the next day.

"Well we'll just have to wait and see what its like, won't we?" she asked, Red smirk widened as he leaned back in the seat. By this time Slack couldn't help herself, the same emotion that had forcer her to move closer to him was now forcing her to wrap her right arm around Red's back, though like twice before, he didn't seem to mind, instead he looked as though he was enjoying it.

They watched what little city life was happening from their above ground position. Slack felt like she could do this forever, sit up on the roof, doing nothing but watching traffic flow through the city slowly, but she knew that wasn't right. She, as well as Red, needed their rest for the next day, but then again, what would five more minutes hurt.

She sighed and gently rested her head against Red's shoulder, this wasn't the first time she'd done it, and it surely wasn't going to be the last. To her surprise, Red wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer to his body, though she didn't mind, instead found it entirely enjoyable.

The two sat like this, in a complete state of comfortable silence, for some time, the only action either of the two was doing, was enjoying the warmness and company the other provided, neither of the two had any idea of the feelings the other had, though, unbeknownst to them, the two surely did share the same feelings.

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Well, That was the last part of Chapter Six, How did you enjoy it? Was it great? Amazing? So great and amazing that you'd sell your only child on Ebay just to get another taste of it?...Maybe not that amazing. Either way, You know what time it is..that's right Its Time for Another segment of The Captains Crazy Trivia. 

All of the new characters introduced in this chapter will be back sometime in the future. Characters like Officer's Dobson and Martinez will play a somewhat smaller role the next time their seen, Sergeant Scythes will play a bigger role but, in turn will play a smaller role than both Detective's Patches and Brice, who'll act as the Titan's closest allies in the police force.

Following in my tradition of basing characters off of actors, I can say that Sergeant Scythes is based off of and modeled after actor William Forsycthe (The Rock, Blue Streak, The Devils Rejects) and his character Sheriff John Quincy Wydelle in The Devils Rejects...Just in case you were wondering.

Detective Brice was supposed to be modeled after actor Samuel L Jackson, or any one of the cop characters he played (You know what I mean by that. Brice was supposed to be a real badass cop whose constantly quiping and shouting when it's not neccesary), but he kind of became a more friendly and gentle guy as I wrote more and more of his character. Instead Patches is going to be the duo's 'bad-cop'.

Detective Patches is, suprisingly, the only 'original' character I came up with in this chapter. He was supposed to be based off of Mel Gibson's character Martin Riggs in the Lethal Weapon movies...but I really didn't feel right moddeling a character after an Anti-Semite. So Instead I came up with Patches character as I imagined what Riggs would be like if he were played by any one but Gibson.

Well, that does it for Today's trivia lesson kids, I hope you enjoyed reading my trivia segments and found them both exciting and entertaining.

Next Chapter: A blast from Slack's past comes in the form of an Eight foot tall murderous reptillian monstrosity known only as Caiman, who suddenly and unexpectedly shows up in Hallow City. But what's Caiman's link to convicted serial killer Clancy Arkady, and what does Arkady have to do with Slack's past? All these answers and more will be answered next chapter.


	9. Chapter 9: Caiman

Summary: Follow the adventures of Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and Sev members of the newly organized Teen Titans H.C defending Hallow City from the perilous dangers it faces day-in-day-out. They'll have to face an assorted array of villains including, A psychotic gang lead by a team of super powered teens, a deadly bounty hunter with a mysterious link to one of the Titans, a bloodthirsty werewolf willing to turn any one in his way into a midnight snack and a multi billion dollar genetics corporation that's not all that it seems to be to name a few. But their most dangerous threats come from facing and overcoming each others assorted pasts as a team. Expect tons of guest appearances by the original Titans as well as other D.C. Comics heroes and villains.

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Well, well, welcome back folks. It's you're host, saviour, master of disaster, and all other legend describing words you could think of to describe me: The Captian J.T. Wolfe, who brings with him A BRAND SPANKIN NEW chapter that's bound to make you feel every type of emotion possible...well, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I will say that the stuff in this chapter (Aside from the action) puts everything else I've done to shame. 

First things first (Do I really have to tell you what the next paragraph and a half will look like?) It's time for me to get my thanks and micellaneous items of news out of the way, so we can get on with this story, so, with that said. Let's move on to our first topic shall we?

First order of buisness: I've done this countless times before, but what should make this any different? I'd like to appoligize for the severe lateness in which I've presented you with this chapter. It's entirely my fault, I've been really busy lately and...well...that's what held me back.

Secondly: As alway's the big Numbah 2 will be used to thank those of you who were kind enough to review, last or any chapter for the matter. So here it goes. I'd like to express the deepest of deep thanks for the following readers who took the time to review: Splint (Respect to you brothah), Death Jester (Dude, thank's for all the help with this chapter, Couldn't'a done it without ya), Markus Saint (They'res a reason why you're name's Saint...wow that sounded lame on paper, but still, thanks a ton bro), Dragontwin (I'd like to make a snappy joke with you're name like I did Markus's...but the opportunity doesn't really present itself. So instead I'll wish you sincere thanks: Thanks a bunch) and Glaicer Alchemist (Being last on my list doesn't mean I like you the least...it just means I ran out of idea's for funny jokes and figured: Why not pretend like I didn't? Thanks for the review by the way). You guy's rule and help to keep this story from the cold, dead, clutches of a hit stand still and eventual death, so give yourselves a pat on the back...my treat.

Third Topic: I'd be lying If I said I was running out of story idea's, basically, because that's a lie, but what I am lacking, is a good series of short, one shot typed chapters I can use to put inbetween action/drama/backstory heavy chapters such as this. So if you're willing to contribute to the 'keep the story alive by way of sending my PM's or reviews with plots for filler' charity please feel free to do so. The idea and resulting chapter can be based on/or designed after anything, Fluff, humour, action, romance, anything as long as I have something to break up and slow down the flow of this story. (P.S. I know I asked the exact same thing last chapter, but I figured it couldn't hurt to do it again).

Fourthly: I don't mean to let you down with this, but I can safely say the action in this chapter isn't as great as it was in the past two, the reason for this: is that a lot of the creativity and what not went into writing Slack's flashbacks than went into the action, but I still think it has a good amount...but that's my opinion, and you're free to have you're own, so if you disagree, feel free to say it.

Fifthly: This chapter will be the first of (Possibly) many to include Flashbacks that will help detail, flesh out and allow you to better understand the characters. This is my first time writing a flashback heavy story...ever, so I'd appreciate any opinions you have on the flashback story and how I presented it, if you don't like it, please feel free to tell me, otherwise..how will I know. Remeber they'res no such thing as stupid questions...just stupid people (Not that any of you reading this are...please don't be mad at me).

Finally: A disclaimer: I do not own any of the Teen Titans, Jump City or any other D.C. property owned in this non-profit work of fiction (As much as I'd like to). What I do own are the characters Slack, Red, Tag, Lightlad, Blizkid, Sev, Detective Patches, Detective Brice, Arnold Busmalis, Clancy Arkady, Simon Jones, The City: Hallow City, Silent Falls and Hallow Point Prisons, the plot to this story/chapter and any other non-DC comics owned property in this chapter...unless it falls under other copyright issues, in which case I do not own it.

Now, without further adue, It's my great pleasure to give you the first in many backstory heavy chapters I plan on writing...the first of which I like to call...

* * *

Chapter 7: Caiman

* * *

Arnold Busmalis, a thirty two year old, olive skinned, clean shaven and somewhat attractive man, stood on the long, concrete loading bay that led to Silent Falls Correctional Facility's 'special' cells, the ones coated in padding where patients were refined with straightjackets, or as they were called by their wearers "The jackets that hugged back", a statement which was both mildly humorous and intensely depressing at the same time. 

As the name might suggest, Silent Falls was more of an Asylum for the criminally insane than a high security prison, Hallow Point Penitentiary filled that void as it was more secure and reserved prison. Attached to a small island off the main land, it greatly resembled the famous high security prison Alcatraz, though, unlike Alcatraz, no prisoners had ever been known to have escaped Hallow Point, not even one.

Busmalis, just so happened to be an employee of Silent Falls. He, as well as thirteen others like him, were all members of S.P.T.A.R.T. or The Special Prisoner Transport and Recovery Team. A team of security professionals, all with backgrounds that differed greatly from regular security employee's, some were Army Veterans, others former officers of the law, though they all shared the same 'hook' in their backgrounds, that 'hook' was that they all had significantly better training than the other staff members.

S.P.T.A.R.T. was made up of fourteen men, divided into two, seven man units, each unit tasked with transporting the more 'dangerous' residents of Silent Falls, as well as given as much jurisdiction as the police force to track down, and should the need arise, kill escaped convicts. They were feared by the convicts in Silent Falls, and much more feared by the ones who'd escaped.

Currently Busmalis stood with six other men, all dressed in similar outfits to his own, which happened to consist of black padded pants, a black jacket with "Busmalis" printed uniformly on the back, though the name was found only on his, as the others wore uniforms with their last names instead of his on their backs, a vest of black lightweight security armour, or an 'L.S.A. Vest' as he, and the others, had come to call it, and, the last piece of clothing he, as well as the others, wore was a small helmet, in the style of a bicycle helmet, attached to each one's head. These, like both their armour and coats, had their last names imprinted on them.

To his right stood his friend, co-worker and superior at Silent Falls, Simon Jones. Jones was a taller, older and practically humourless black man, who not only held much more responsibility as co-leader of S.P.T.A.R.T. but also as

Like Busmalis, he dressed in the same uniform as his co-workers,, though Jones' was , shaded a shade lighter than the others, as well as held several small red and black stripes on the left and right shoulder, each representing a 'kill' Jones had made during his time on the force. In total his clothing held seven of these stripes, meaning he, and only he, was responsible for ending the lives of seven escaped convicts.

At the moment, the two stood with another member of S.P.T.A.R.T.: Miguel Carmine, a twenty four year old, suburban raised man of Spanish descent, who'd served as a police officer for six months before being discharged after an act of 'insubordination'. Aside from his cowardice past, he also had another thing going against him, he was the unit's newest recruit, and, as such, was usually assigned missions of little to no difficulty, something which his fellow members, frowned apon, as they found the fact that he was younger and less experianced to be too easy an excuse for him to get the missions they wished to have themselves.

All three of the men stood on the right side of the loading bay, with four others S.P.T.A.R.T. members, Cases, Pick, Baker and Hedges, all dressed in outfits reminiscent of the three other members, though all of their outfits came fully equipped with full faced gas masks, which as the name would imply, covered each member's entire face.

To the right of the men, a large truck slowly backed into the parking lot, generating a loud, mechanical 'beep-beep-beep' noise as it did. On the back of the truck stood a large metal box, roughly ten feet tall and wide, the box was divided into two uneven half's, the bottom half, being the larger of the two, was made of a solid metal and decorated with a yellow and black border, the top half, which was significantly smaller than the bottom, was made entirely of long, slender, silver tinted bars, each roughly three inches thick and half a foot long.

To sum it up, the box looked more like a futuristic cage than a box, especially since it's inhabitant, from what the others could hear, sounded no where near human.

As the truck backed up, the bright blue lights of a nearby structure came to life, exposing a large yellow crane attached by a small cinder wall, to the farthest side of the building.

The crane stood roughly twenty feet tall and had a ball capped man operating it's switches, the crane's magnet touched down on the roof of the cage, slamming into it roughly before hoisting it five feet into the air, the crane took the cage from the back of the truck and moved it to above the men's heads.

The men quickly gathered around the area in which the cage would be dropped, it was a small flat metal slab, that looked exactly like a mattress, only made of metal specially designed to hold cages exactly like the one in the air, on the sides of the 'mattress' stood several small clutches with hooks on the end. These were used to secure the cage so that, should the prisoner inside be able to, the cage would be moveable due to its restraints.

As the cage finished lowering the men, minus Carmine, who stood somewhat confused as to what exactly was going on, gathered around the cage and, in two men teams, began to raise the clutches to the locks attached to the sides of the cage.

Jones, who worked with Busmalis to raise the heavy clutch, turned to Carmine and furrowed his brows into an angry glare, his hatred of recruits derived from the fact that none of them ever knew what the hell they were doing, and Carmine was no exception.

"Carmine, What the hell are you doing!" He shouted, Carmine, without an answer himself, simply shrugged his shoulders in response. Jones sighed heavily, he hated recruits, he really did.

"Get your shock stick and give our new freind a good jab will ya? If he keeps banging the sides like that it'll knock this damn cage to the ground" Jones shouted as he continued to raise the clutch.

Carmine nodded, grappled his stun stick, the same kind of electrical shock emitting device that the security in Biogen used, rushed to the cage and stabbed his stick inside, the device hit something hard but still, in it's own way, fleshy, like rough skin, though it was inhuman, if he had to guess, he'd say it felt like he was stabbing an elephant's skin rather than a humans.

Suddenly, he felt a grip on the length of the stun stick, the person inside, who ever the hell he was, was grabbing it, which too was inhuman, he tried his hardest to wrestle his weapon out of the hands of the creature and back towards him, but it was too late, the thing inside, what ever it was, had stolen his weapon from him, which made Carmine intensely afraid.

Before he could do so much as call for help, his stun-stick was thrust back out of the hole it had been jabbed into only seconds earlier, the stun-stick managed to get in-between the gas mask he wore and his armour, stabbing deep into Carmine's neck, earning little more than a gurgled "Help" before he collapsed backwards.

Jones had just finished with the clutch when he heard the disturbing noise of a body dropping; he turned to Carmine body, which lay constantly twitching on the floor behind him.

"Jesus Christ!" he shouted as he rushed over to Carmine's body, he grabbed onto his gas mask and pried it off his face forcefully, exposing Carmine's light brown skin and black hair to the light.

His entire face, as well as the top part of his armour, was drenched in a light blackish red liquid, his own blood, with the colour change created from the lack of light around that area of his body.

The twitching of his body came from the fact that the Stun stick, which was stabbed deep into his neck, was still on, sending thousands of volts of electricity coursing through his body at a hazardous pace, though at this point it didn't really matter, it didn't take a genius to figure out that Carmine was dead.

"Damn. It was only his second week on the job" Jones muttered in a calm tone. Death wasn't such an unordinary thing for the S.P.T.A.R.T. team, hell, he alone had seen three of his own men die in just one mission, tracking down a serial killer who had gotten the better of them.

He turned back to the cage, which now shook hazardously away from Busmalis' side, shaking towards his other men. This wasn't good, not good at all. Before Jones' could do anything about it, the cage broke through its holds, snapping the thick metal holds in half, and came crashing down onto its left side, the side where Cases, Deeds, Baker and Hedges stood.

The cage crashed fiercely onto the four bodies, knocking them to the floor and crushing all four men with a sickening 'crunch' of broken bones. The door to the cage slammed onto the floor, forcing it open, this worried Busmalis, who stood defensively, his hand grappling the small regulation pistol attached to it's holder.

Suddenly, a duo of green lizard like arms stretched out from the broken cage. The arms, while lizard looking, retained several attributes of a human arm, including four human like fingers, despite the large black claws that were attached to each one, and a thumb, which also came with a large claw.

After the arms emerged from the cage, a reptilian like head slowly crept out from the darkness. The head looked like a cross between an alligator and a iguana's head, with the general shape of the head looking a lot like an iguana's head, be it a large iguana, this included a series of thin spikes jetting out from the back of it's head, as well as a series of crescent shaped spikes across the flat side of his head.

Soon after the head, came the remainder of the body, which, like the arms, was mostly reptilian in design while still containing some human like figures, for example, it's torso was built a lot like a human's, with humanoid biceps and ribs, though it's skin tint, like the rest of it's body, was green and lizard like.

Finally the creature finished emerging from the cage, bringing with it a set of human like legs, both ending in a pair of reptilian, clawed paws, as well as a long green tail, were a series of knife like spikes jetted out from the bottom of it.

As it stood, on it's two hind legs, it measured at least ten feet tall, if not more, it's chest and

Busmalis' hand slowly crept down to where his small, handheld sub machine gun sat, holstered against his right leg. Slowly he unclipped the safety strap that kept the gun from flailing about, ran his hand over the dark black handle and prepared to draw the weapon.

Behind him, Jones had already drawn his weapon from it's holster and aimed it at the creatures chest. Unlike Busmalis, he didn't hesitate to squeeze the trigger, a move which caused the gun to explode in a loud uproar of yellow flames as two and a half dozen bullets spew from its orange glowing barrel and soared through the air.

The bullets cut through the air for a short second before coming into contact with the creature's body, tearing through the creature's deep, thick, lizard like flesh, jerking it's body from side to side, each direction his body jerked in a byproduct of the area where the bullet struck on the creatures body.

Finally, after what seemed like ages to the two men, Jones gun ceased to fire, he'd expelled all of his ammo, finished firing his entire clip of ammunition into the creature's torso, leaving a cloud of grey smoke surrounding the, presumably, deceased creature's torso.

As the smoke settled, both he and Busmalis were shocked to see the creature standing just as it had before, only, it was now covered by several dozen bleeding wounds across his chest.

Both of the men watched with a mix of horror and amazement as the creature's wounds began to heal at a inhuman pace, quickly reverting back into the creatures green tinted skin. As they finished healing the healed wounds ejected the golden bullet tips that had been lodged into the creature's skin seconds ago, each one dropping to the floor with a soft 'click-click-clang' sound coming from each one.

Busmalis silently drew his gun and aimed it at the creature; he wasn't going to let this thing get out of the area alive. As he squeezed back the gun's trigger, the creature spun around backwards quickly, swiftly, and masterfully, dodging all twelve of the shots Busmalis had fired at it, which proceded to dig into the wall behind the creature.

With one quick movement, the creature whipped its massive green tail at Busmalis' hand, the movement was faster than anything he had ever seen and took him by surprise.

The tail struck his wrist, with the strength of force and the long, sharp and jagged spikes, being enough to slice the hand from its wrist, leaving nothing more than a jagged, bloody stump of an arm in its place.

Busmalis screamed as he grabbed his stump, falling to his knee in the process. The creature opened its mouth as a red, slimy, snake like tongue ejected from its open mouth and hung, tauntingly, at Busmalis.

Meanwhile, Jones had reloaded his weapon and aimed it at the creature, who now stood over the hunched over Busmalis, he squeezed the trigger for a second time, firing twelve more shots at the creature's back, all hit with perfect precision and dug deep into the creature's flesh, again the creature seemed unaffected, aside from showing a slight sign of pain. He quickly spun around and faced Jones.

The creature moved its legs backwards before shifting its weight onto its hind legs, preparing to leap at Jones. Jones continued to fire at the creature, knowing full well his efforts would be in vein, but he still continued, so that, should it be possible, he'd at least die with the knowledge that he'd die saving his friend.

Just as he'd predicted, the creature leapt at Jones, moving both of it's claws in front of its body as it did, the creature flew for several seconds, with bullets constantly burning into it's body as it did. Finally its aerial transport came to a halt when it's claws were met with a hard entity, Jones body. The creature immediately slashed upwards, its claws stabbing through Jones' armour, digging deep into his flesh.

The creature, now standing on its hind legs, drew its claws, with Jones body still impaled on them, above its head, Jones screaming in pain while this was happening. The creature gave, what could only be described as a smirk before he began to pry them apart.

Busmalis, who now lay on his stomach, closed his eyes as Jones body slowly began to become split into two halves, all he could hear was the sound of ripping flesh and Jones high pitched screams of pain. Should he make it out of here alive, he'd be haunted for the rest of his life by this.

The creature dropped what was left of Jones' body to the floor, earning a disturbing 'squish' sound from the fallen chunks, before turning it's attention to Busmalis, who lay flat on the floor.

The creature walked over, creating large 'thump's with every slam of it's foot and a series of 'clicks' as it's claws touched down on the rough concrete, slowly working it's way over to Busmalis' body, as it reached his body, it put it's right paw atop his head, it's claws digging into his forehead roughly.

The creature raised it's foot above his head, ready to stomp his head into the ground, instantly killing him, the creature heard Busmalis whimper out a prayer, a prayer of peace, a prayer for his fallen friends, a prayer for redemption.

The creature smirked again and stomped it's foot down, slamming deep onto the concrete beside Busmalis' head, shattering the concrete floor, sending thin slices of stone every which way.

The creature lowered it's head to Busmalis', so that it's head was directly beside his ear, Busmalis was fear filled to say the least, he had no idea why this creature was toying with him, why not just kill him? Why let him live?

The creature opened its mouth and, instead of devouring Busmalis' head like he'd imagined it would, it did something which caused Busmalis extreme curiosity, it began to speak, the previously anthropomorphic reptile spoke, in perfect, if not grimly grisly, English.

"I'll let you live" it said in a menacingly gruff and at the same time reptilian voice, Busmalis wasn't sure if he'd truly heard the voice he just had, or whether he was past the point of mental stability.

Slowly the creature left Buslamis body, stomping off towards where a solid brass manhole stood, the creature brought it's foot above the top of the manhole and stomped down on it, slamming it's foot atop the lid and cracking it into the darkness of the hole.

The creature raised it's head into the air, taking a moment to spot out all of Hallow City. He looked first at the dozens of sky scrappers that filled the area surrounding the prison, then his gaze focused on the large, white 'T' shaped tower, he snarled.

"So this is Hallow City" he said in his heavily villainous and reptilian voice. From behind him, he heard the noise of feet stomping, probably more security come to catch him, he smirked, they'd never catch him, not now, not the next day, not for a thousand years.

With one swift movement the creature leapt down into the manhole, quickly evading the sights of the half a dozen S.P.T.A.R.T. soldiers who had gathered around the horrific crime scene he had created just moments prior.

* * *

_Metropolis.  
Twelve Years Ago.  
_

_A young, black haired and pale skinned girl, roughly six years of age, stood alone in a large, empty, white room, which held several dozen plastic chairs and tables, all coloured a shade of whitish blue. The girl stood teary eyed and heartbroken as she stared around the, formerly lively and _

_The wall opposite where the girl stood was made entirely of clear plastic 'safety' glass, the term 'safety' coming from the fact that the glass was thick enough to withstand tremendous forces, including small firearm fire. _

This room the young girl stood in was known as an 'Observation Pod', the term coming from the fact that it overlooked a large white room where scientists, such as her father, showed off their scientific discoveries to those wishing to watch the, in this case, biological, experiments taking place.

_The room was full of Science Fiction looking equipment, large, box shaped supercomputers lay, attached to the back wall of the room, large white tables sat in front of them, stacked with small laptops, glass test tubes, beakers and all other forms of chemical producing, and storing devices.  
_

_The room also held a large, flat, white operating table in the shape of a flat bed, the table had broken restraining straps, with an obvious explanation of how they got that way, and a large, red, mark smeared across the bottom of the table._

_The girl fought back tears as her eyes moved across the grisly crime scene before her. In front of her, her very own mother, the woman who'd given birth to her, who'd raised her from a tiny infant to the young girl she was today, lay dead, her face pale and eyes wide open with a series of large red wounds in her stomach, which bled a flow of crimson liquid onto the solid white floor, forever tainting it that menacing colour of crimson. _

_Across from her lay the shattered glass remnants of the supposedly 'indestructible' glass of the safety glass window, with a large hole shattered in the middle of the window, that hole being her mother's murderer's entrance into the Observation Pod._

_Down in the room below which was full of torn cloth, damaged technology and broken machinery, half a dozen bodies lay sprawled across the floor, their bodies twisted and mangled worse than her mothers body had been. _

_Two of the mangled bodies belonged to security guards, one she knew as Barney Transholm, a childhood friend of her father's, the other she hadn't known and now never would._

_The other four bodies belonged to scientists, each dressed in a white coat, now drenched in red blood, two of the four bodies lay face up, with the same large red gashes on their chests as the ones on her mothers, the young girl recognized both of these people._

_The first body was Lawrence Tagedy, another friend of her fathers, Lawrence was, or had been, a twenty two year old, African American, understudy of her fathers, who often joked, that since he'd lost his first son during the Gulf War, Lawrence had become his second son. _

_But that was all in the past now, now that Lawrence was nothing more than a mangled and tarnished corpse in a room full of them but, despite this, the young girl could clearly make out his famous smile, the one that he'd used time and time again to brighten up her day._

_The second of the two turned over bodies was the hardest thing the young girl had, or ever would have to, stare at in her life, the second body, the frail, lifeless and mangled body, was none other than the body of her very own father. The man who, for the past six years had been her personal idol, her hero, her everything, the man she loved more than life itself, was now nothing more than a bloody, tangled corpse in a room full of death._

_Slowly the young girl fell to her knees, she couldn't muster the strength to stand, she couldn't muster the strength to do anything, not even cry, for what ever reason it was, she couldn't do any thing aside from stare at the terrible tragedy that surrounded her. A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind, running at a speeds that not even The Flash could reach, such thoughts, which poisoned her mind, included 'Why had this happened to her?' 'Why her parents?' ' Why her friends?'_

_Though, throughout all of her over three thousand, rhetorical questions, the main question, burning into her mind was 'Why?', she truly didn't deserve this , she'd been a good girl, what was God expecting of her? She wasn't perfect, no one was, not even her father, her idle, her mentor. Slowly she began to cry over the thought of how she'd never see him, or her mother, or Barney, or Lawrence, or any of them again._

_She didn't know it at the time, but despite what she thought at the moment, this heartache, this tragedy, this brutal abomination, would help shape her into the person she'd become in the future, help mould her into the person who she would be who she would be in the future, and despite the terribleness of the tragedy, it would only prepare her for the harsh, brutal and vicious that the real world was….The real world, not the sugar coated, silver lined cloud counting, free ride world she'd been living, the sick, twisted, world that everyone living on it called Earth. _

Quickly a pair of dark, pale, blue eyes shot open, before gazing around the room frantically, acting as if in a serious state of panic, a state of threat…a state of fear.

This frantic, panicked gazing continued for a short while longer before the pair of eyes began to relax themselves and take the time to adjust with their surroundings.

Slowly the owner of the pair of eyes rose from her slumber, revealing into the light the figure of a female, this female just so happened to be Slack, the fearless, heavy hearted leader of 'the biggest band of freaks, geeks and creeps' as Lightlad had dubbed so elegantly.

Slack shot up in her bed, panting lightly, a panicked pant, the kind one gives after watching a horror movie, or sleeping alone in a large, empty house. She gazed around the room for a second, before realizing that she wasn't in the lab, she wasn't living it again, it was just a dream, a terrible, terrible, dream. She gave a sigh of relief and began to get out of her bed, this wasn't the first time she'd had that dream, that nightmare, and it surely wouldn't be the last.

That nightmare, or more rather, the actual event, the tragedy, the travesty, the reality, it was the one thing that plagued her mind day-in-day-out, the one sign of weakness she could never shed, the one scar on her heart that would never heal, no matter how hard she tried, it would stay there, haunting her, a constant reminder of how she'd once been weak, scrawny, useless.

She tried to wrap her mind around a different topic, instead of thinking about the painful past; she placed her thoughts on the past two weeks of her life, which had been, for the most part, extremely enjoyable.

As she recalled, it had been two weeks since the teams first day in Hallow City, two weeks since The Reapers defeat, two weeks since Hoffman's public and personal embarrassment, and two weeks since their first triumph over Hallow City's two most notorious enemies.

During that time, Hoffman, under great distress from both police and protestors questioning his involvement with the bank robbery, had claimed no responsibility what so ever for the events that had transpired, instead blaming Cain and his team as "Spending my money on their vices, crack-cocaine, and heavy boozing. It was a by-product of those three factors", or so he claimed in interviews with all of Hallow City's major media correspondents, who passed this claim off, as unrealistic as it was, as the truth.

After a full federal investigation by Hallow City police, he was let off with as little as a warning, something that the team, as well as both detective Brice and Patches, saw as more than a 'stroke of luck' as he claimed in a later press conference, both, the team of heroes, and team of detectives, suspected 'hush money' was involved, but since, like his involvement with The Reapers , they're was no evidence to prove it and neither teams decided to let this idea expand past a theory.

Even after his trial, his involvement was still questioned by citizens of the city, forcing him to go through great lengths to re-assure the people that he held no responsibility, going so far as to donate two and a half million dollars to reconstruct the damage Cain and his troupe had done to the bank, a move that the citizens of Hallow City believed to be a true gesture of his 'kind heart' as local media cited, this just so happened to win over the favour of Hallow City's citizens.

As for the Reapers, after being bailed out of prison, they were but on a nine month parole, which they'd been apparently following as none of them had been seen by the media for the past nine days. For their members things hadn't been all to well, since Cain's probation disallowed for him to drink, he slowly fell into a state of mental depression, which, in a way, made Slack feel somewhat sorry for him. She constantly found herself feeling a tinge of guilt whenever she read an article about how "The Reapers former leader falls into great depression" or "Checks into Rehab", but then again, that was a fault of his own. Fox had followed Cain to rehab, not that she was an alcoholic, just because she had nothing better to do. Quake had been blinded in one eye by Lightlad, which had affected him for the worse, as of late, he was forced to wear a tissue over his eye, and, judging on the level of care he received, might be forced to permanently wear an eye patch over it, something he sought out revenge for. As for The Reapers final member, Lizard, things had been pretty much 'normal' for him, he constantly bummed around the city, picking fights here and there, but mostly staying out of the publics view.

Slack knew, as much as she'd like for it not to be true, that they were planning something, something big, but just what it was she couldn't tell, and since she had no evidence other than a gut feeling, she couldn't stop it, instead she'd just have to wait and see what happened.

Finally, it was time to talk about her favourite team of them all: Her team. The public had been far greater to them than they'd expected. The team received record amounts of fan letters on a daily basis, with, surprisingly, more than half of the letters addressed to Red, which upset both Tag and Lightlad, though Red usually ignored or threw out his letters, most were from protest groups, religious groups or angry parents who disliked Red, several times Red had been protested against in public venues and more than once he'd had eggs, tomatoes and just about every other form of vegetable tossed at him, earning him the nickname 'The living salad' from Lightlad.

Magazines, talk shows, radio shows, newspapers and all other forms of media entertainment had crawled on their knees both figuratively and, disturbingly enough, literally, to get a shot at an interview with the team. The team constantly found themselves dodging paparazzo's who tried their hardest just to get a picture of the titans, twice they'd had to exit a crime scene through the back exit and dozens more times they'd had to have riot control help them get to their vehicle.

As for the fans…there wasn't much they wouldn't do to get a chance to meet their heroes, Slack and Tag found themselves with thousands of letters of fans expressing their love for them, some were more 'tongue-in-cheek' amusing, but others crossed the 'humorous' line and treaded far into the 'deeply, psychotically disturbing' line, which had forced Tag to have Lightlad, who seemed overjoyed to accept the position, read all of her fan mail before she did.

While all this media coverage and fan endearment was entertaining, Slack had really found solace in spending time with, and getting to know her team mates. They were like the family that had been robbed from her oh to soon in life, Blizkid was her little brother, well…he was the teams little brother, he was cute, in an adorable kitten sort of way, which was why she found it so easy to relate and spend time with him. Lightlad was the aggressive, jerky, brother, though underneath his exterior, Slack, could tell that there was a gentle and generally nice guy, though he had yet to admit it to himself. Tag was like a sister's sister, she did practically everything Slack did, with few exceptions. Had the two looked more alike, they could probably have been mistaken as twins, or at least real siblings. Sev was kind of like the 'geeky' or 'weird' brother, like the ones they'd always show on Television shows. He had an odd fixation with computers, which, to some might seem normal, had it not been for his 'need' to name, give personalities and admire each one, as if they were real people, though this 'flaw' was easily overlooked by both his increasingly appeasing humour and his flawless pre mission tactics, which had helped to prevent more than twelve robberies already, he was valuable to the extreme, as well as easily likeable, which made him seem like the sort of 'weird, yet funny' brother, which left, of course Red.

Red…they're really wasn't much to say about him, except for the fact that he was the best friend she'd ever had; he was kind, caring, concerning and, much to her delight, he always had time to listen to her, or, any one else's for the matter's, problems, as big or little as they were, she, as well as the rest of the team, knew that deep below that thick coat of 'badass' he wore, beat the heart of not only a saint, but a true gentleman, the kind of man young Slack dreamed of one day falling in love with, of course she didn't love Red…did she? No that was just a stupid thought, they'd only met fifteen days ago, that wasn't enough time to actually fall in love with someone, then again, she'd never actually been in love for a first time, so who was to tell her it wasn't.

Trying to hide that thought from her mind, she decided to get out of bed and prepare for the rest of her day. As she got up, she slowly rubbed her eyes with her hands, wiping away both a small build up of dry sand as well as wet moisture, the same kind of 'wet moisture' tears were made from, she'd been crying and from how damp her face felt, it had been a large amount of tears for a long amount of time.

Wiping away the last of the built up tears, she pushed the upsetting thoughts towards the back of her mind and prepared to go through her usual, daily routine, taking a shower, drying off, dressing and seeing what was doing with the others, all of which took her less than an hour and a half, she should know, she had counted half a dozen times.

She hadn't planned a Training session for today, as, unlike Robin, she had more of a 'mercy' approach to training. Where Robin would train his team to the point of near death, Slack had much more of a soft side for training and she did hate training herself.

Instead of daily training sessions, which had a nasty habit or tiring out heroes, she decided that training would take place every second day, at Nine O' Clock, no later. She knew it was better for her team not to push their limits, she couldn't risk having a member be incapable of helping out when the need be, instead every second day was more than fair, especially since they only trained for two hours.

Nearly an hour after she'd awoken Slack had finished her daily routine and emerged from her walk in closet, dressed in a fresh, clean and fully furbished, costume over her skin and a fully equipped utility belt wrapped tightly around her waist.

Next she began to walk towards the door, when something caught her eye. Laying on the dark brown hardwood cabinet attached to the wall beside her door, lay a series of small, square, black and white pictures, which was odd, as she hadn't recalled opening the drawer the previous day, nor did she recall going through those pictures, those were private pictures, pictures she held dear. She wouldn't have just left them lying around, that was what peaked her curiosity the most.

The pictures showed a family of three, a tall man, the same one from her dream, her father, with his arm wrapped around the woman from her dream or her mother. Both had their unexposed arms, wrapped gently around young Slack's shoulders, all three held large smiles on their faces.

As she reached the table, she sat in the chair, gently grabbed the pictures and gave them a quick 'run over', which she immediately regretted as she began to feel a tremendous amount of sadness, depression and anxiety as she looked them over.

The pictures showcased a young girl, the same one from her nightmare, herself at the age of six, with two older adults, one a tall, black haired man, her father, and the other a shorter, blonde haired woman, her mother. The two had their arms draped over the young girl's shoulders as all three smiled into the camera. She began to feel her eyes water, in what felt like the first time in ages. The picture had been taken, what? Two, three day's before both of the two had been so brutally taken from her.

She sniffed quietly and tried her hardest to push this new thought from her mind, a task which she found impossible, instead, she hugged the pictures into her chest gently; she missed them so much, so much that at times it hurt. It wasn't fair how they'd been taken from her, how others could walk around with the comfort and warmth of a loving, embracing family and she couldn't. No, she couldn't think that, these thoughts were all selfish thoughts that she'd taught herself years ago to let go of, to forget herself and be happy for what others had that she didn't, happy, not envious.

She began to feel her eyes water, she wanted to wipe the tears away and pretend, pretend like she'd done every other day of her life, that she didn't mind the fact that they were gone, pretend like their deaths hadn't affected her in the least, pretend that the pain would heal, pretend to be normal. But she couldn't, she couldn't keep this charade, this lying to herself, denying the fact that she missed them any more; instead she let loose her stream of tears, which rolled down her face and landed, drop by drop, on the hard wood desk in front of her.  
For the first time in, who knew how long, she cried, not just cried, but really, bawled her eyes out, releasing her pent up emotions in the form of wet, drops of water from her eyes.

Her crying continued for several minutes, though, in truth, at the moment it wasn't really crying, more like silently weeping, like her stranglehold on her emotions, she'd also held a much more fierce hold on her tears, which now showed more than ever, as she tried continuously to stop weeping. Finally, after what felt like ages, she heard a soft knocking on her door.

Sniffing quietly, she wiped the remainder of her tears away with her forearm, she didn't want anyone else to know what she was doing in her room, this was something private, something only she should know about, she had no intentions of dragging the others into this, no intentions of having them share her pain…it wasn't fair to drag them into it.

She walked to the door and pressed her finger down on the 'talk' button, she sniffed again, hoping desperately that the person on the other side didn't hear her.

"Ye-yeah?" she asked in a semi shaky voice, the crackle of static could be heard before a voice broke through the mechanical hiss of static.

"Slack…are you ok?" she heard Blizkid's voice ask, his voice wasn't just curious, but genuinely concern filled, he really cared. She smiled slightly, for whatever reason it was; she felt some level of comfort in his voice.

Again she pressed her finger on the 'talk' button, only to hold it for several seconds without speaking; she wanted to say "No I'm not O.K. I just had a nightmare where I saw my parents, friends and everyone else I loved and cared for be butchered before my very eyes" instead she did what she saw best, not only for morale's sake, no one wanted a weak, crying, sissy of a leader, but for their personal concerns too.

"…..Yeah, I'm fine" she lied into the device, she waited patiently for a response, had her cover been blown? Eventually the response she longed to hear came in the form of an uneasy "O.K" from Blizkid.

Slack sighed heavily, pressed her back against the wall and slumped down into an uneasy sitting position, she had to shake these thoughts from her mind, or find some way to confront them, otherwise it would end up tearing her up inside.

On the other side of the door, Blizkid turned his head to Red, who stood with his back pressed against the wall, his eyes staring into Blizkid's curiously.

"Well…." He asked in a concerned, yet at the same time, calm, cool and collective tone, the tone the others had grown far more than accustomed to over the past fifteen days.

Blizkid shook his head from side to side, he had some idea of what Slack might have been doing in there, than again he could be completely off, who knew?...well Slack did that was for sure, instead he just shrugged his shoulders casually, he couldn't say for sure what was wrong with Slack, so he'd say nothing at all, turned towards the hallway and strolled towards the elevator.

But a simple shrugging of the shoulders wasn't good enough for Red, no, he had to find out the truth, something was bothering Slack, and by doing that, bothering him.

Slowly, he brought his hand up to the small keypad attached to her door, his finger hovering slowly over the small, flat, 'open' button, the 'open' referring of course to the door. As his finger traced along the smooth surface of the keypad he found himself unable, for whatever reason it was, to press down on the button. Hell, she was probably like him, she just needed some time to cool off, without interruption. He pulled his finger back, sighed heavily and stared at the door, imagining what she might be doing inside.

"Come on, Red" he heard Blizkid's voice call from down the hall, followed soon after by the soft 'ding' sound of the elevator, he sighed again, stared a last time at the door for a second before turning towards the elevator.

* * *

Detective Patches stood in the large, open, concrete loading bay of Silent Falls Correctional Facility, his right foot stopped right before a large streak of dark brown, dry blood stained on the concrete floor he stood on. 

He'd seen a lot of crime scenes in his twelve years working as an officer of the law, he'd seen people get killed before his very eyes, blood and guts burst from their posts on a human's body, he'd seen it all, or so he thought he had. In all of his time he'd never seen a crime scene this disturbing, this frightening, this…..sick, and that was after the bodies had been removed.

He reached into his coat's pocket and scooped out a packet of cigarettes; he shook one from its container and placed it in his mouth, biting down on the tip of it roughly.

Behind him, various members of the Crime Scene Investigation team wandered around the crime scene, taking pictures of blood stains, collecting small portions of the entrails that lay splattered across the remainder of the crime scene.

Patches eye's wandered over the crime scene, it was always disturbing to him to see something like this happened, when lives were lost in such a horrible way, He sighed and turned his head towards where Detective Brice stood.

Brice stood to the right of Patches; he held a small black and white cell phone up to his ear and listened to the device with a mix of controlled anger and uneasy patience.

"...Thank you for you're time Mr. Busmalis, and I hope that you get well soon" he spoke into the device before shutting the phone closed and snapping it gently onto it's holder.

"I just got off the phone with the hospital, according to Busmalis, a giant lizard-like 'thing' attacked him and the rest of the S.P.T.A.R.T. team…before escaping through that manhole" He said pointing to the broken Manhole cover which was surrounded by black and yellow striped tape.

The two walked over to the manhole and peered down into the lonely, darkness that was Hallow City's sewers, Patches took one last puff on his cigarette before spitting the remaining tip down into the sewer, waiting patiently for the slight 'plop' it would bring.

Seconds later the slight 'plish' of water splashing against itself was heard, Patches smiled and reached into his pocket for the same pack of smokes he held earlier.

"You think we should send an investigative team down there?" he asked as he pulled a cigarette loose from the pack with his teeth, Brice shook his head sideways and looked up from the manhole.

"No, it's to dangerous. If what Mr. Busmalis described really is down there, it'd take a SWAT team or something to get it out" Brice said, Patches smirked.

"And you believed what he said?" he asked, Brice only nodded his head, Patches smirk lowered into a frown.

"Really?" He asked in disbelief.

"Why not, I mean, maybe a month ago I wouldn't have believed it, I wouldn't have believed that half the crap we've been put through in the two weeks was real, but with the Titans here and all the crazy, messed up crap we've seen in the past two weeks, what makes an eight foot lizard so unrealistic?" Brice asked. Patches frown increased.

"Fine, then let's just call them and have them go down in the sewers and worry about this 'seven foot lizard'." Patches said in disbelief.

"Eight feet-"Brice corrected him; Patches rolled his eyes before taking a long hard drag on his cigarette. "-and that doesn't seem like such a bad idea".

Patches only rolled his eyes and tossed the remainder of his cigarette onto the concrete ground, before stomping on it roughly, angrily more like, making sure there was nothing left of the paper wrapped tobacco, erasing it entirely from existence.

Brice reached for his phone, pulled it from its holder and tapped several buttons gently before bringing the device to his ear.

"Hello. Titan tower?" He asked into the device.

Patches frowned again and stared questioningly at his partner. Why the hell did he trust those kids so much? Just because they wore ridiculous and could fight against equally ridiculous enemies he, and the whole damn city, thought they were 'all that', hell, if he had a spandex workout suit he might as well parade around the town as Patches-man, that way he might get a little attention from the media for the work that he did.

He growled under his breath and stared back at Brice, He'd never understand for the life of him how Brice could maintain such and optimistic outlook on life, he'd seen more officers killed in action, or K.I.A., than any other officer in the city, well, with the exclusion of Scythes, who held ten years of work experience on Brice. Than again, he did have a loving family, two sons: Samuel, his six year old and Martin, his four years old, a teenaged daughter: Kendra and a wife: Sarah, maybe a family was what kept him sane, hey, if that's all it took, he might as well marry the next woman who laid eyes on him.

* * *

_Metropolis  
Twelve Years Ago _

The young girl, or rather, Slack at a young age, stood clutching her mothers right hand tightly as she watched her father and his small group of colleges prepared to enter the experimentation room, the room which was located below a large white observation pod.

_The girl gently released her grip from around her mothers hand and rushed towards where her father stood, running up to his legs and hugging them tightly. The man looked shocked at first, but upon discovering the trauma around his legs to be the force of his very own daughter forgot all about his shock._

_He patted her on the head gently before bending over onto his knee's, so that his head was slightly above her head, he looked down at her with a smile, behind him, each one of his colleges smiled at the scene present before them, it was rare, with their hectic lives, to observe such a spectacle, especially with one of their own._

"_Hello, Chloe" He said wrapping his arms around the young girls back, gently lifting her into the air. The young girl, or rather, Chloe, smiled and hugged his chest gently._

_Across the room, Chloe's mother looked around in a panic; she'd been talking with a friend one minute and the next her daughter had disappeared, she stared around for several seconds before laying eyes on her husband and daughter, locked in a hugging embrace, it was one of those moments she wished she had a camera for. She smiled before walking over to the two of them, putting her hand on her husbands shoulder and gently pecking him on the cheek before taking young Chloe into her own arms. _

"_Mom, I want to watch daddy's job" She said as her mother lowered her gently onto the floor, her mother smiled slightly._

"_I'm sorry Chloe but daddy has a lot of important work to do-" She began to say but was cut off, be it politely, by her husband._

"_-Oh come on Mary, she's young and curious. Besides, I'd love for you to watch this, I'm making break through work with this experiment, If all goes well I should have government funding for all my future experiments" he said with confidence. _

_Her mother: Mary, frowned slightly, she really didn't want Chloe to watch this experiment, he'd been rambling for the past two weeks about how it involved all sorts of needles, injections and all other sorts of things she was sure would be damaging on her daughters young mind, but then again, he did want for the two to see this 'scientific breakthrough', and how many times in her life would she be able to say "I just witnessed a new page being written in history"? _

_Slowly she sighed, nodded her head and gently grabbed Chloe's hand, her husband smiling all the while; he loved when they got involved with his work and anything they did was a confidence booster indeed. _

"_Mr. Stevens, We need you in the experimental room right away" A voice from behind him beckoned, he sighed and walked towards his wife and daughter. Leaning down he gave Chloe a peck on the head and his wife a kiss on the lips, before turning towards the large, white door that led to the experimentation room._

_Meanwhile, Mary and her daughter began walking across the hall, walking towards the large, silver rimmed door with "Observation Pod: 1" neatly printed on the door, where an elderly, grey haired, clean shaven, security guard, with the name tag "Transholm" stood, placed beside the door. He greeted the two cheerfully as they approached._

"_Hello, Mrs. Stevens, little Chloe" he said tipping his hat towards the two, Mary smiled lightly._

_  
"Hello, Barney" she greeted; he smiled again and placed his hat back on top of his head, doing all this with a friendly smile. Mary could hardly understand how he could keep such a gentle, warm and friendly smile, especially with all the awful stuff he'd seen in his expanded career. _

"_Well, I'd better be heading into the Ex-room, you take care now" he said, walking towards the same door her father had entered earlier. Mary smiled before advancing into the room, where a large, white staircase stood, the staircase ending with the glass door to the observation pod._

_Chloe, familiar with the layout of the observation pod, rushed up the stairs, opened the door quickly and raced to the large, glass window, pressing her body up against the glass in order to get a better view._

_She saw Lawrence Tagedy, her father's young lab assistant. Lawrence was a tall black man with a small, puffy afro, a thin strip of hair below his lip and a large pair of headphones around his neck, something which drew great criticism from his peers._

_To Larwrence's and the rest of her father's understudy, who she hadn't met previously, lay something which upset Chloe, a flat, white, table, hoisted above the ground by a small crank like device, though that wasn't what upset it, rather what was on top of it. _

_Laying on top of the table, lay a muscular, half dressed white man. The man had a completely shaven head and a broad chest with a series of tattoo's, which had Chloe been older, would have realized held many inappropriate words, phrases, images and symbols. _

_The man was strapped into the chair tightly, with two security officers standing atop of his semi-conscious body, one of whom happened to be Barney Transholm. _

_Behind Chloe, the crowd murmured to themselves as they watched the setting up of the experiment, scientists walked paced back and forth in the room, waiting for something, though Chloe had no idea what._

_Finally, her father, who'd been standing remotely in the corner, approached the microphone attached from the roof to the middle of the room, grabbed it gently and began to speak into it._

"_Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed members of the press and any one else observing. I'd like to welcome you to the introduction of what my colleges and I believe to be the next step in curing one of the worlds' most deadly diseases as well as the next greatest discovery of the century" He spoke into the device before walking towards a solid white table, where a micro scope a small computer and a series of beakers stood _

"_To the right of me lays Clancy Arkady, one of the city's most notorious serial killers, caught and convicted August First, 1985. Mr. Arkady was recently diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, fortunately for Mr. Arkady, the cancer is only in an early stage. Now Foxford Maximum Security Prison was kind enough to allow me to experiment our company's latest experiment on him: EDA, a drug combining genetic strands of the newly discovered gene in reptiles which allows them to regain their lost limbs, with the experimental drug Traceium, a drug designed to awaken a dormant gene found in human's, a gene which allows humans to combine and adapt foreign genetic makeup. In simple science: it allows humans to take certain qualities from animal DNA and convert it to usable human genetics. If our experiment goes according to plan, you will witness the first step in the worldwide cure for Cancer" _

_On this revelation, the entire audience went into a state of complete silence, even Chloe indulged in that state of quietness, not speaking so much as a word to her mother, who stood by the door behind her, watching her husbands work with curiosity and fondness which couldn't be rivalled by anyone in the world._

"_We've already tested this concoction on several field animals, which were diagnosed with terminal cancer, all managed to overcome the disease within two to three weeks. This will be our first experiment on a human test subject, but hopefully all will go well" Her fathers voice spoke through the speaker above her head. Several members of the press began jotting down notes._

_Slowly her father grabbed a large, silver, syringe off of the table; the syringe had a small glass side, exposing a vial of reddish, orange chemicals, slowly he walked towards the table, where Arkady lay in a blissful state of unconsciousness. _

Her father slowly inserted the needle into the man's neck, the thin, knife like tip slowly probing into his jugular. As soon as the needle was fully inserted, he slowly began to apply pressure to the top of the syringe, slowly expelling the reddish orange liquid into Arkady's body. In response to this, Arkady's limb's began to twitch, his chest, head and arms began to build up a small sweat which streamed down his body.

_To the right of Arkady stood a stand with a small monitor perched atop of it, the monitor displayed his vital status with a wavy blue line, which continuously lowered as his twitchy demeanour increased, before the wavy line finally diminished into a flat, straight line, which was accompanied by a faint "Beep"._

_Mark: Chloe's father, panicked, he was dead, Arkady, his test subject was dead, the experiment had failed, his research had failed, his team had failed….he had failed. He stared first at the body, then up at the display window, staring deep into the eyes of his young daughter's, which were filled with tears. No, he couldn't give up, not yet…he had a job to do, he had to make things right, for his team, for himself, for his family, for her…for Chloe. _

* * *

Slack gazed around at the same crime scene Patches, Brice and the crime scene investigators stood in at the moment. She and her team had arrived at least a good twenty minutes before hand, she had immediately struck up a conversation with Detective Brice, who had informed him of all the information they knew. 

Behind Brice stood Patches, his arms folded, one atop the other, and a frown on his face, Slack found it both amusing and annoying that he disliked them so much, behind herself stood Blizkid, his eyes, like hers had, wandered around the crime scene, though he looked more frightened by it than curious.

Lightlad and Tag stood around the manhole, both staring down into it with great curiosity, despite the numerous amounts of times they'd fought in the city, even back in Jump City, neither of the two had ever fought in a sewer.

"They want us to go down there?" Lightlad asked in disbelief as he withdrew his head from its position of staring down into the manhole.

"That's right" Red said, Lightlad frowned.

"It's chock full of diseased craps, bugs, alligators-" Lightlad began to ramble.

"-Lightlad" Red said in a testy voice in an attempt to stop his rambling, knowing full well, once he stopped, he couldn't be stopped, he was like the rambling Energizer Bunny, he just kept going and going and going, on and on and on.

"-probably get some kind of super-AIDS from walking down in that crap-" he continued on, ignoring Red's attempt at stopping him.

"Lightlad!" Red said in a more aggressive tone, Lightlad ignored him and continued to ramble on about his hatred of the sewers.

"-I'll bet we'll run into some sort of freakin' mutant army or something down there, damn toilets why can't they just empty they're useless crap somewhere else…like I'd enjoy walking in it-"

"Lightlad!" Red shouted, Lightlad stopped talking and turned towards him, curious as to why he'd randomly shout his name out loud, It was acceptable for a woman to do that, hell, he'd be upset if woman didn't constantly scream when they saw him, but Red wasn't a woman, or a chick, he was Red….plain old angry Red.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Shut up" Red said. Lightlad frowned.

Across from the two, Slack had finished gathering what information she needed from the two detectives, thanked them politely and headed towards the manhole. Halfway between the large entry way to Hallow City's sewers and the duo of detectives she was met by Red who accompanied her on her walk to the manhole.

"So, Slack. Do you have a plan?" he asked as the two drew closer to the manhole, Slack looked at him and smiled.

"Of course" she said, Red smirked, he always found it comforting when Slack had a plan, especially when she was this sure it would work.

"You're plan isn't to go down in that nasty smelling sewer is it?" Lightlad asked. Red's smirk widened.

"What's the matter, afraid of getting a little wet Light Bulb?" Red said. Lightlad rolled his eyes before speaking.

"No, not at all, it's just that I think I might be allergic to excessive amounts of dog, cat and people crap, is all-" Lightlad said, leaning his head over the open manhole, he took a humorously increased sniff with his nose, making sure to apply heavy drama to the disgusted face he made afterwards."-not to mention it smells worse than the death down there" He finished off. Now it was Slack's turn to smirk…well not really a smirk, more like a smile influenced by a mean spirited joke on Lightlad's behalf.

"Well I'd hold my breath because that's where we're going" she said with a smile as she, Red and Blizkid removed the small pylons that held up the yellow crime scene tape.

Finally the five heroes stood over the open manhole, surrounding the hole with their bodies, blocking the sun from reaching deep down into the pits of the sewers.

"Well then, if that's the case, I guess its only polite to say: ladies first" Lightlad said, offering Slack the chance to head down into the abyss first, Slack gave him a fake smile before grabbing hold of the cold, black, metal ladder that led down into the sewers, slowly she descended down the ladder, rung by rung, she made her way to the bottom of the ladder.

Releasing her grip on the ladder, she took her first steps into Hallow City's sewers, walking through 'water' which reached the lower part of her thigh, she immediately covered her nose at the awful smell which emitted from every single inch of the sewers, it smelt worse than she thought it would have, like a mix of rotting fish, human waste, excrement and oddly enough, dry blood, a smell, which as of two weeks prior, she would have no idea about, but after her time in Hallow City, she'd become more than familiar with the smell of both dry and wet blood…too familiar for her liking.

The next person to 'plop' down beside her was Red, who, like herself, immediately found the smell extremely offensive, but unlike her he didn't cover his own nose, as the two began to become more accustomed, though no less offended by, the smell, they were soon met with Blizkid, Tag and finally after a moment of hesitation Lightlad. All three new additions covered their noses, with Lightlad gagging heavily at the smell. They're really wasn't a word for the smell, even disgusting didn't do it justice, but they'd have to put they're disgust aside; they had more pressing measures to worry about at the moment.

"Man, I hope there arn't any alligators or crocodiles living down here….wouldn't want one of those things biting me in the ass when I have my back turned" Lightlad said staring around at the water with a mix of worry and curiosity.

"If what Brice said is true…we have a lot more to worry about than alligators" Red said, taking a good look at his surroundings. The tunnel he, as well as his team-mates, stood in was long, lonesome and damp, the 'walls' of the tunnel were painted a faded shade of green, the same colour as a evergreen tree, possibly in an attempt at having workers cope with the idea of working in such a disgusting environment. Several lights hung from the ceilings, all of which giving off a very, very, slight amount of light.

"So, we gonna do this the old fashioned way?" Lightlad asked, referring to the teams number one tactic, a tactic he liked to call the "Scooby Doo Strategy", as, like on the show it was named after, the tactic involved the team, who worked better as a unit then as separate agents, breaking into one man teams and covering more ground that way.

"Not this time, it's far to dangerous" She said, Lightlad nodded before starring down the long sewer 'hall' which ended in a round, open, room with three separate waterways going through the room, each one a different path to a different area of the sewers.

"Now all we have to do is pick which crap tunnel we want to travel down" Lightlad said pointing his finger at each separate 'crap tunnel', before singing 'Eenie Meanie Miney Moe" to himself as he went from 'crap tunnel' to 'crap tunnel'.

Red meanwhile had found something of great interest along the walls, a series of large, semi-circular, scrapes along the wall, markings if he wasn't mistaken, he tapped a finger to his ear, where a small, black, circular head phone rested gently against his ear. Tapping the 'talk' button gently he began to speak into the device.

"Hey, Sev, can you hear me?" he asked into the device, there was a slight cackle of static, which made Red cover his year, before Sev's voice broke through.

"Yeah" Sev said through the device, Red smiled and drew a small, flat, silver camera from his pocket. He raised the device up to his eye and aimed it at the markings, pressing down on the top button he captured a picture of the markings before pressing a button labelled "Upload".

"You getting this?" he asked, re-touching the 'talk' button on his earpiece.

"Hell yeah" Sev's said, his voice heavy with excitement, cutting through the mechanical static.

"What's it look like to you?" Red asked as he placed his hand on the markings, gently wiping his fingers across them. He didn't know much about large animals, like the ones he imagined had made this, but he did know that no alligator, crocodile or any other sort of lizard rumoured to live in the sewers could have made it, it was impossible for something which stayed so close to the floor could reach that high….or so he imagined.

"Well, judging from the size, width and depth of the markings, I can safely say that whatever the hell made them isn't from the Animal Kingdome….the closest thing to those markings would be the black panther, which I highly doubt is living in Hallow City's sewer system" Sev said. Red nodded his head, reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver lighter which had "B.A.M.F." printed on it, an odd present from Detective Brice as neither of the two men smoked.

He pressed down on the wheel, igniting the bluish white flame from its square shaped tip, the flame shot up and formed a triangular shaped flame, lighting the darkened sewer tunnels, exposing several more of the markings which ran along the wall.

"I think I just found which way he went" Red said as he began following the markings with a bloodhound's intensity, the others followed after him struggling through the thick sewer water, but following nonetheless.

The markings led down a long, dark, damp and heavily fortified tunnel, which, surprisingly, had little sewage water in it, as compared to the rest of the sewer system.

"Sev, where are we?" Slack asked into her earpiece.

"According to my maps of Hallow City, you're in the, soon to be destructed, Crankville sewer system, which would explain why there should be little sewer water running through there" Sev's voice said through her earpiece.

"Soon to be destructed?" Lightlad, who, like the rest of his team, could hear every word spoken by Sev, asked into his own device.

"Yeah. Basically it means: If you're gonna smash anything in the sewers, do it here" Sev said, Red smiled a genuinely happy smile, something he did rarely, if ever.

"That's what I like to hear" Red said with a zealous smile as they continued down the long sewer tunnel.

As Slack continued down the long walkway, she couldn't help but feel like they were being watched, nor, as much as she tried to, could she shake the feeling. She constantly found herself checking behind her back, only to be met with the sight of the long stretch of decaying rock and pool of disgusting water they'd just traveled down.

As they continued to walk down the tunnel, each member began to feel the same thing Slack was, the eerie, creepy, stalking feeling, Red leaned down to Slack's ear and whispered something into her ear, she closed her eyes and nodded her head, Slowly Red branched off from the group, straying off into the darkness of the tunnel, his eyes, with their animal like sensitivity, paying focus to the ever moving translucent body that stalked behind the team, the large, humanoid, yet still strangely animalistic, 'shadow' of their stalker.

Red couldn't wrap his mind around it, but they're was something about the way 'it' moved, not that the fact that the creature, which he assumed it was, being a creature of such large proportions wasn't strange, but the way it stalked, while still staying focused on the team, was odd to him. He'd watched dozens of animals in his lifetime, maybe even hundreds. All animals that stalked their prey watched it with all of their attention, and so did this animal, which was normal, but the level of focus it paid on the team, especially on Slack, was abnormal, like it wasn't just stalking them, it was watching them, observing their every movement…which upset Red.

Slowly he ran his hand down the brick wall he stood against, his hand searching for a loose brick, bone or any hard object he could use to distract the creature. His prayers were answered when his fist grappled a damp brick which wobbled loosely from its hold in the wall.

Gripping the damp brick, he gently pulled it from it's slot in the wall and raised it to head level, preparing to toss it at the moving translucent humanoid frame.

He tapped a finger to his ear, pressing down on the 'talk' button, signalling to the others that the first part of his plan was in play, he turned his head to see the others all prepare to attack, be it slowly and surely, making sure to show no signs of knowledge towards the creature.

Red drew the brick behind his self, slowly moving his body forwards to allow room to toss the brick, arching the muscles in his arm he quickly whipped his arm forwards, tossing the brick at the creature in the process,

The brick flew for a slight second before coming into contact with what could be assumed to be the creatures head, deteriorating the brick into little more than rubble, which crumpled down into the sewer water with a slight 'pitter-patter' as it hit the water.

The creature gave a low 'howl', a sound that sounded like the mixed product of a howler monkey's scream and a angry human's shout, before it's figure slowy began to become exposed, shedding off it's camouflaged state in return for it's fully exposed state.

"Jesus tap-dancing Chist " Lightlad shouted in shock as the figure's camouflage wore off, exposing the figure of an eight foot reptilian monstrosity, which stood, glaring angrily at the teens, all of whom stood with an equal level of intensity, aside from Slack, who stood uncomfortably quiet and remote.

From where she stood, Slack gave a horrified glance at the creature, which wouldn't seem surprising to many, but to Red, who watched, it seemed extremely unusual, especially since the face she made wasn't a 'I just saw a monster' horrified glance, it was more of a 'I just saw a dead relative' horrified glance, or so he believed.

Suddenly the creature pressed its back legs into the ground, lowering its body in the process, before any of the team had time to do so much as blink, the creature began to rush forwards at breakneck speeds, running right towards Slack.

Slack leapt out of the way in a split second movement, narrowly avoiding the creature's spiky forehead from slamming into her torso, which instead slammed into Blizkid's, who had stood behind Slack, knocking him onto the floor before sending his body shooting through the sewer water, only to stop when his back slammed into the farthest brick wall across from him.

"Blizkid!" Tag screamed in concern for her fallen friend, she began to rush towards him when a green tail, whipped at her chest by the creature, came into contact with her stomach, sending her body flying across the room before landing gently against the brick wall opposite where Blizkid lay.

"You son-of-a-" Lightlad began to say as he aimed an already charged Light-blast at it's torso, he fired the shot, only for it to miss the the creature, who dropped to the floor fiercely, and cut through the air before coming into contact with Red's chest, burning deep into his flesh and launching him against the wall he stood against moments earlier, ruining his attempt to help Lightlad.

The creature smirked at this new development before whipping its tail up at the unaware Lightlad, who was momentarily distracted by the guilt his miss aimed shot and the resulting accident it had caused on his team-mate caused. The creature's tail connected with Lightlad's chest with enough force to not only slice deep into his costume, slashing a large, cresent shaped gash on his chest , but also to send his body shooting upwards, slamming it into the brick wall above his head, cracking it and launching his body into the sewer water, knocking him unconscious.

The creature rose from it's lowered state, standing up on it's hind legs, now towering over Slack's body by at least two feet, as for Slack, she stood, somewhat trembling below the creature, he hands shaking with fear.

"You…." She said shakily, a smirk traced along the creature's reptilian mouth as it leaned its head down to face Slack's. Its head now directly in front of Slack's the creature huffed out a ragged breath at Slack's face, the force of which sent Slack's hair flailing backwards. She cringed at the awful, disgusting smell of it's breath.

Slowly the creature began to circle her body, with Slack too scared to do much else by stand completely still. As the creature reached behind her, it stopped moving and moved it's head to beside her face, Slack shivered for a slight second, even giving a slight whimper.

"Ah, little Chloe, how you've grown, I never thought I'd be able to see you're pretty little face again. You couldn't imagine how much of a privilege it is" He said as his thick, red, reptilian tongue jetted out from his mouth, and slowly traced a line of thick, white, mucus like slime along the side of Slack's head.

Slack cringed both at the disgustingness of the situation, and the near death like smell that the trail of slime left behind, they're truly wasn't a word for how awful it smelt, it was like mixing a decaying animal carcass with an outhouse.

Slack began to feel droplets of sweat trickle down her forehead, traveling slowly down her face before dropping to the floor, leaving behind a wavy line of built up moisture.

She felt a tinge of fear creep up her spine before surging throughout her body, she swallowed, closed her eyes and began to count to five, an age old remedy she'd been taught by her father.

"One" She counted, slowly and raggedly, as the creature's heavy breath continued to crash against her back.

"Two" she counted, suppressing a whimper of fear.

"Three"

* * *

"_Four" Her father coughed out as he pressed his palms against Arkady's chest, attempting to reinstate the life back into the man, he wasn't about to let him die, not like this. _

He lowered his head down to Arkady's and took a deep breath into his mouth, attempting to fill the man's lungs with oxygen.

"_Five" he said as he again pressed his palms down on Arkady's chest, unfortunately, and much to his horror, the flat line didn't change, it remained the same, Arkady was dead. _

"_Dammit" he cursed loudly, though none of the audience could hear it, at this point all form of sound emitters were shut off; allowing none of the audience to hear what had been going on. _

"Mark...it's not your fault" Lawrence said, trying to calm his lab partner and mentor down, Mark turned to him and sighed heavily, before slamming his fists into the large active TV screen, breaking the device thoroughly.

_He slumped down against the wall, pressing both of his hands against his head and slowly slamming the back of his head against the wall, suddenly, and very unexpectedly, something miraculous happened, the once 'beep' wail of Arkady's dead heart, slowly began to convert into a 'bump-bump', Mark's eyes light up, he wasn't dead, he was alive._

_He shot up quickly and watched as the heart rate continued to change, watched as it began to speed up, speeding up drastically….. too drastically. _

_Quickly, a little too quickly, the flat heart rate of the once deceased serial killer changed into the mad thumping heart rate of a man who'd just ran a marathon, but it didn't stop they're._

_Just as the heart rate had changed, Arkady too was changing, large blobs of skin began to grow across his body, before smoothing out and adding extra muscle and flesh to his body. Before long his skin started to change tint, it went from tanned brown to reptilian green, and just as quickly began developing scales, lizard scales. _

_As his mass increased and his body continued to mutate, the audience began to get involved in the hysteria, instead of running like had been expected, they began to snap photo's of the mutation, something they'd soon come to regret._

_By this time, both security officers had rushed to where Arkady lay, surrounding him by this point, both of the men had their weapons drawn and aimed for his head, which couldn't be called a head at the moment, as it was more of a triangle shaped lump, which slowly began to form into a reptilian head. As this was happening, Arkady's arms, legs, feet and hands, began to increase in size before shooting out a series of razor sharp, dark black claws, which went unnoticed by the twosome of guards whose pistols were aimed solely at Arkady's reptile head._

"_Freeze!" Barney screamed, cocking the hammer of his revolver with his thumb. Arkady, in reptile form, only smirked and hissed out "Make me" in a deep reptilian tongue. _

_At that very moment, he flexed his massive reptilian muscles, allowing him to break loose from his restraining straps, which flew across the room in all different directions. _

_Both officers fired at Arkady, who fell back into his laying position as the bullets dug into his chest, only for him to kick himself off the table, both of his claws stabbing into the second officer, slamming his body onto the floor with the weight of his body, instantly killing him. _

_As Arkady removed his feet from the dead officer's torso, Barney cocked and fired a second shot at Arkady, the bullet digging deep into his left shoulder. Arkady flinched, only momentarily, before bringing his right hand above his head, all five of his razor sharp claws struck out in a slashing position, and quickly slashed his hand down at Barney's chest._

_The claws struck his chest, tearing through both his uniform and flesh, slicing deep into him with enough force to instantly kill the elderly security guard, who dropped to the floor like a bag of bricks._

_Across from the deceased officers and reptilian monster, three of the four scientists beat their hands against the locked silver door, which, unfortunately, happened to be their only escape. Each one hoping, praying, that someone would answer. Unfortunately for them, the door could only be opened with security cards, which were only held by the security team, both of whome lay dead on the floor behind them. _

_Slowly, Arkady turned his head towards the scientists, stuck out his long reptilian tongue at them and hissed in a snake like vain, before he began to make his way towards the scientists, his claws rattling along the wall as he moved towards them, the claws generating a 'clat-clat-clat' noise as they slashed gently against the wall._

_All four members of the science team looked at one another with a mix of fear, worry and depression; this was it, the end of the line, the end of their lives. As Arkady continued to advance on the scientists, Mark rushed before his team, placing his body in front of them, using it as a shield to protect them. Arkady only smirked a devilish smirk, smirking at the honourable sacrifice he was willing to make, and the thought that it would mean nothing as he'd just kill the rest of the scientists after. His smirk widened as he imagined the slaughter he'd soon be responsible for and raised his right claw high above his head, Mark, doing so little as flinching below him._

_Back up in the observation pod, Chloe, whose eyes were fixated, though not in a healthy way, on the butchery below, fell to her knees and shut her eyes, she couldn't watch this, the image would never escape her mind if she did, it would haunt her, every time she closed her eyes, and, though she didn't know it at the time, she was right, it would haunt her, haunt her for the rest of her life._

_Behind her every member of observation pod, with the exception of Chloe and her mother, had rushed to the exit and were fighting, viciously to escape out of it, with her mother, fighting desperately to enter through it, to find her daughter, to save her daughter._

_She pushed her way through the crowd, screaming out her name in an effort to attain contact with her daughter, though this effort fell in vein as her voice could hardly be heard above the increasingly loud voices of the men and women attempting to escape. _

_Finally, with a stroke of luck, she managed to move an obese, balding, journalist out of her way, allowing her entry into the now fully deserted room. Her eyes wandered around the room, tables, chairs and other objects were spew across the floor, deserted by their previous patrons, finally her eyes made contact with the small, crouched, figure of her daughter, who lay on her knees in front of the large window, with her head pressed gently against the glass. _

_  
As she approached her daughter, she could hear her humming the tune of 'Ave Maria', a song which she herself had hummed countless times to her at a young age._

_She was several steps away from Chloe when she heard a series of violent thumps coming from the room below, followed by a series of pain and sorrow filled screams, she didn't need to be told what they were from, covering her eyes with her hand she stopped moving and slumped down onto her knee's, tears streaming out of her eyes at a very rapid pace. _

_As she finally reached her daughter, who by this time was crying as much as, if not more so, than herself, she heard the loud, nerve shattering, sound of shattering glass, followed by a duo of loud, ground shaking, 'thumps'. _

_Turning her head to the right, she was met with the sight of the large reptilian creature: Arkady, who had just laid waste to the room below as well as ended the lives of her friends and husband. _

_Arkady began to advance on her, a devious, sinister, sickening, smirk sprawled across his reptilian face, his tongue stabbing out of his mouth, tracing along the rough, scaly surface of his lips._

"_What do we have here?" he asked tauntingly as he continued to approach the mother-daughter duo, who lay weeping for those lost on the floor. "Looks like a nice, juicy, helping of gator bait and something for me to take home later….a nice, slender, busty, midnight snack". _

"_Chloe, stay behind me sweetheart" Mary said in a paniked, yet still strong tone. Disgusted and afraid of Arkady, she knew the wellbeing of her daughter was more important than her own life, knowing that she stood up and stared directly into Arkady's large, round, reptilian eyes, which narrowed down into two thin slits as she stared at him. _

_She gave him a pleading look and attempted her hardest to speak, though every word she tried to say got stuck in the back of her throat, she swallowed hard, looked him in the eyes again and found the strength to speak._

"_Please…." She begged, tears streaming down her soft cheeks, Arkady's smirk widened as he approached her. He raised his arm up to her check, his slick, wet, reptilian paw rubbed up against her cheek as his long, slender, index finger wiped away her tears._

"_Ok" he said as he ran his grotesque hand through her hair roughly, she smiled, or rather, forced a smile, and turned to her daughter, whose eyes were closed, shut, tightly, she wished she could do the same, close her eyes, and forget this had happened. _

_Suddenly, she felt a series of sharp pains, five in all; shoot across her chest and stomach, followed soon after by the feeling of her clothes becoming damp, she lowered her head to see, just as she'd imagined, five black claws, the end of each one drenched in a reddish liquid, her own blood, she suppressed a scream of pain, and slowly, gently, closed her eyes, she had no intention of her last sight on the earth being the awful state she was in right now. Instead, she filled her mind with the thoughts, and accompanying images, of her family, her handsome husband, her beautiful daughter, and herself, all embraced in a loving hug. With that thought in her mind, a smile traced across her lips._

_Arkady withdrew his claws from Mary's stomach slowy, before grabbing hold of her body, gently, and placing it on the floor, he may be a man murdering, reptilian serial killer, but he still held some ethics, just not as many as the average man, far less to be exact._

_As he prepared to make his escape, using one of the tables to shatter the glass window which held a view of Metropolis's bay and would allow him a seamless, clean getaway, he turned towards young Chloe, and felt, what could only be described as 'guilty', though he wouldn't know what that was, as he'd never felt it himself…until now that was._

_He approached her and knelt down to her level, his head directly in front of hers, she sniffed gently, wiped away the remainder of her tears, and looked him directly in the eyes, her own filled with both a deep sorrow as well as a intense hatred which burned like hellfire in her pupils._

"_Little Chloe, you will always hate me for what I've done today, that hatred will build and build inside you until you can't take it anymore, when that happens, and you're looking for you're revenge, I'll be ready, but don't think I'll let you kill me…because that would be a mistake worthy of you're life…and I won't hesitate to take it" he said._

_Chloe, too upset to do so much as speak, only nodded her head up and down, before wrapping her arms and legs into herself, curling herself into a upstraight sitting fetal position, Arkady smirked and stared at the glass window, or as he saw it, his way of escape. _

_Grabbing a hold of one of the large, white, round tables, he swung it around violently before releasing his grip on it, the table flew towards the window, shattering it and allowing him an easy exit. He turned back towards Chloe._

"_I'll be waiting for you, Chloe" He said before leaping towards the windowsill, escaping through it and disappearing, leaving Chloe to mourn the damage he'd created.

* * *

_

Slack opened her eyes to see Arkady's head in front of her own, she swallowed and tried to manage the courage she needed to attack him, but it wasn't easy, seeing the man, or creature, who'd destroyed her family, who'd made her what she was today…it was all too painful for her to bear.

"You know something, you're a lot like you're mother….sweet, smart, beautiful, and of course, scared to death of me. You even have the same look on you're face that she did all those years ago, you'd remember it, it was the kind of face that stuck with you, imprinted on you're mind, so that you spend every waking moment with it in you're mind's eye. It's weird that I can remember this, after all these years, but than again, you don't forget something like that, do you, Chloe?" He asked, a sinister smile traced across his face.

Across from where Slack stood petrified with fear, Red had gotten to his feet after being knocked down from Lightlad's misaimed blast, which had burned quite the large hole in his chest, but that didn't matter to him, at the moment, nothing but saving Slack mattered to him, not even his own life, which was exactly why he was going to risk it saving her.

He reached above his head and grabbed hold of a rusty pipe. From the dull, unmoving feel of the pipe; he could tell that no water ran through it, which was good as it would help with the element of surprise.

Tugging on the pipe with force, he managed to pull a sufficient, two and a half foot length of it off of the roof, with the end the length destroyed by decay, leaving the tip of it as sharp as a broken bottle, not very sharp but still jagged and decayed enough to leave a meaningful impact on Arkady should he have to, which, judging from how things were going, he would most likely have too.

Holding the pipe in his right hand he pressed his feet against the floor and readied himself for the pain that the creature would surely endure upon him should he fail at his objective, swallowing hard he pressed off against the floor, his body lifting in the air for a slight second before he began to pick up a pace.

He rushed at Arkady, fuelled by a hated intensity. As he reached within five feet of the creature, he moved the pipe into a stabbing position and kicked off the ground, leaping into the air.

Arkady turned his head just in time to see Red, with the pipe held in two hands, stab it deep into his chest, with enough force for the two foot length to have stabbed in one end and shoot out the other, stabbed through his chest diagonally. Red, still holding onto the tip, kicked his feet into Arkady's chest and leapt off of his body, kicking Arkady backwards as he did.

Red landed gracefully beside Slack and, as quickly as he'd landed, placed both arms on her shoulders, straightening her out, shaking her gently in the process, he cupped her chin with his hand and gently raised her head to face his own. Her eyes held tears, painful memory created tears, which he rubbed away with his thumb, it pained him to see her like this, it really did.

"Slack….are you ok?" he asked, she smiled slightly and wrapped her arms around his back, pulling him into a deep, embracing hug and resting her head against his shoulder.

"It's ok, it's ok" He said as he raised his hand up to her head, gently running it through her hair. He'd seen it done in a movie and, being inexperienced in the art of comforting scarred women, figured: If the movies could do it, why couldn't he?

Slack gently raised her head from it's resting place on Red's shoulder, and saw, much to her horror, Arkady quickly advancing on the duo, the pipe which had been stabbed into his chest, now in his right hand, with a rapidly healing wound where it used to be.

"Red!" She screamed as she broke off the hug and spun him around backwards, in an attempt for him to have a chance against Arkady, who was now less than a foot from him, unfortunately, her plan worked in Arkady's favour instead of her own.

Arkady swung the pipe vertically, slamming it into the side of Red's head, knocking him to the floor strongly. Red attempted to get up, only to have Arkady's large foot press down on his back, keeping him down, his large claws slowly digging into Red's skin.

Red cringed as the claws cut through a thick layer of his skin, now digging deep into his muscle and soon to dig into his bone, he continuously tried to raise his body, a task which had it not been for the sudden pain across his body, would have been easily accomplished.

Turning his head he managed to catch a glimpse of Slack, who had the same worried look on her face she did earlier, he gritted his teeth as he felt the claws dig through his muscle before mouthing something to Slack, something which made her drop the sorrow filled face she held in exchange for a hardened 'battle stare'.

She reached behind her back, reaching into a pouch on her utility belt, and grabbed a hold of a large, 'S' shaped knife, or a glaive, a weapon, designed to work much like one of Robin's 'birdarangs', though in now way designed like it.

She held the glaive in her hand by its round, blue tinted, midsection, with both of the sharp edges, each one in the opposite direction of the other, lay flat on a vertical angle.

She brought the weapon behind her back, reading it for throwing purposes, before tossing it, with the force, precision and expertise of a baseball pitcher, forwards, her aim directed at Arkady's massively thick, reptilian, throat.

The glaive spiralled through the air, creating small waves of sound as it did, before it ran bast Arkady's large, thick, throat, slicing into it and slashing it open, causing it to spray a thick burst of greenish blood, before circling around his neck, slicking the opposite side of his neck, and returning to Slack's hand.

Arkady grabbed onto his throat with both of his arms and took several steps backwards, withdrawing his foot, and claws, from Red's back as he did, Red, slowly and painfully, got to his feet and stared at Arkady, who moved backwards slowly, each step he took was jerky and unstable, which made Red more than happy.

Arkady steadied himself out and began to stand still, his hands still placed around his neck in an attempt to stop the bleeding, Red took this opportunity to his advantage, he rushed at Arkady, wrapped his arms around his chest and tackled him to the floor, attempting to slam his head on the ground, in an effort to knock him unconscious.

Unfortunately, his plan didn't go as he'd imagined, it turned out, Arkady had been faking the damage to his throat, which, as of the moment, was fully healed. He stared at Red, whose face held a look of extreme discontent, smirked and grabbed his head with his hand, his claws digging into the back, side and chin, of and on Red's head. Red gritted his teeth, raised both of his fists and began tossing punches at Arkady's head. Each one hit with enough force to knock a fully grown man out, only Akrady wasn't a fully grown man, he was a fully grown reptilian freak, but the punches hurt none the less, and it showed as Arkady began to get extremely agitated.

Using his one free arm, Arkady reached around for the pipe he'd dropped when he covered his throat. As his hand touched the object, he gripped it roughly, drew it above Red's back, and stabbed it down; unsure of what he'd stab it into as he couldn't see the object.

The pipe struck a hard, fleshy piece of Red's body: his leg, or rather, his thigh to be exact. The pipe dug deep into his thigh, digging through the flesh, muscle and bone of his leg, before shooting out the opposite end. Red shouted out an expletive which rhymed with "Mother Trucker", an obvious response to the sudden pain, before grabbing a hold of the part of the pipe which stuck out from his leg, attempting, feebly, to remove it from his thigh.

Arkady smirked and used this new advancement, the 'advancement' being the knowledge that Red couldn't fight back at the moment, to his advantage. He flexed his knuckles, concealing his long, claws, before slamming both of his palms into Red's chest, knocking him off of his body and launching him down the long strip of sewer he'd send Blizkid launching down earlier.

Arkady rose to his feet, turned towards Slack and shook his head from side to side, a sign of disgust at her actions, or rather, her lack they're of, disgusted at the fact that she'd just stood they're and watched her friend be injured…but oh well, it made it easier for him. He raised a claw above his head, readying it to strike Slack, when a burst of yellow struck his side, burning a large hole in his stomach. He cringed and turned towards his assaulter, he was met with the sight of Lightlad, his arm aimed at his chest, a small yellow glow beginning to build up around his fist.

Arkady stood with both of his massive claws aimed at Lightlad's throat, ready to slice his throat with enough force to turn him into a human Pez dispenser, a move which surely would have killed the teen, when the built up blast fired off, shooting from his wrist and burning a small, but still painful, hole in Arkady's chest.

Arkady growled and slashed both of his claws at Lightlad, only to have his claws cut through the air, instead of the flesh, muscle and bone of Lightlad's neck, much to his surprise; he was met with the feel of nothing, nothing but air.

Un-understanding of how he'd missed, he turned his head to the right, where he was caught with the site of a puff of white smoke, which slowly vanished into thin air, exposing Tag, with her arms wrapped around Lightlad's chest, this action being the one which allowed her to travel with Lightlad.

Both Tag and Lightlad stood with Blizkid and Red, both of whom now stood on their feet, with Red leaned over Blizkid's shoulder, a large, red, gory, hole in his leg, and the bloody pipe which had caused it lying at his feet.

Arkady turned his attention from the heroes, back towards Slack, who now stood alone, both her palms clutching a pair of silver glaives, one of which was the one she'd used to slash his throat earlier, as both of its opposite facing blades were drenched in his thick green blood, she raised the weapons to a throwing level, and stared at Arkady, she wouldn't make the mistake of letting him live this time.

Arkady only smirked at her and dropped to the floor and rushing, on all fours, which allowed him a much faster rate of travel than on two legs, down the remaining length of the tunnel,

"Get Red up to the surface, I can take care of Arkady" Slack said, Red attempted to voice his distress on the matter, but was of no avail as Slack ignored him and began following after the escaping reptilian.

"Slack!" he shouted as he attempted to follow her, only to be stopped by Tag, Lightlad and Blizkid, he spun around and glared angrily at the three of them.

"We have to follow her" he said in a worried tone, Lightlad sighed and tossed an arm around Red's shoulder, restraining him from following after their leader.

"What we 'have to do' is get you up to the surface. If you're leg doesn't get healed right away it could get infected with AIDS, measles, or something worse" Lightlad said. Red shook Lightlad's arm off of his shoulder and took several steps towards the tunnel where Slack had began chasing Arkady.

"That's a risk I'm willing to take" he said as he took several more steps, on his fifth step he applied too much pressure on his right leg, causing an intense amount of pain to shoot up to his wounds, forcing him to fall to his knee's, only to be helped up by the trio of Tag, Blizkid and Lightlad.

"As much as I hate to say this Red, Slack can take care of herself" Sev said, speaking through the device around Red's ear. Lightlad, again, lended Red his shoulder to lean on, Red, regretfully and hastily, accepted it. Maybe they were right…maybe she could take care of herself.

Regretfully, he, as well as the rest of his team, abandoned their leader and escaped the sewer entrapment out of the entrance they had entered in from, the entrance where this had all started.

* * *

Slack rushed through the deep sewer waters, she was hot on his trail, or so she thought she was, honestly she couldn't tell if she was following Arkady or was just lost, maybe he was following her, following him. 

She sighed heavily, as much as she hated to admit it, she lost him, she lost her first criminal, something she would have to live her whole life with, which wouldn't bother her so much if it wasn't for two things: One: the fact that she could be sure she'd never again find Arkady and Two: She'd blown her chance at avenging her parents, friends and family's deaths, something she would never live down.

Suddenly, from behind her, she began to hear the 'thump-splash, thump-splash' she'd been following all along, she hadn't lost him, he was right behind her, and she still had a chance at righting the wrongs.

Slowly Arkady emerged through the tunnel she herself had emerged from, his reptilian body fitting through the tunnel very narrowly, as he finished exiting the tunnel he turned to Slack, his eyes burning with a mix of anger and excitement, or so she thought, it was hard to tell with him especially since he had those 'insect eyes' like she preferred to call them.

"I said one day you'd have the chance to get you're revenge…well, today is the day Chloe, which makes me wonder, do you have what it takes to kill the man who destroyed you're family, the man who ruined you're life? Can you do it?" he asked as he moved directly in front of her.

Slack thought back, way back, back to the day when she'd lost everything, back to the day when she'd felt such extreme anger and sorrow, hatred and distress, despise and depression, with all these emotions now running through her head, it was obvious what the answer was.

"Yes" She said angrily as she reached behind her back and grabbed hold of two round, silver and blue coloured, flat circles. She drew the two devices in front of her body and pressed both of her thumbs down on the blue 'button' in the middle of the devices, causing the blue to glow for a slight second before two thick blades shot out, each one going the opposite direction of the other, they were glaives, the same kind of device she'd used to slash his throat earlier.

"You may have you're snazzy blades and gizmos. But I've got good ol' fashioned talons of steel...which have years of experiance, you'd know, wouldn't you?" Arkady said curling both sets of claws tauntingly at Slack.

"You know, they're was something you're mom said, that I'm sure you didn't hear, or if you did, you probablly didn't remember…you know what that was?" He asked in a taunting voice, Slack shook her head angrily and Arkady smirked. "-She said: Don't hurt my baby…well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to break my promise to her, because when this is over and done, I'll make you feel every ounce of pain I made her feel...and just like I did that day, I'll enjoy every second of it".

Slack, feeling the anger surge through her body, rushed at Arkady, both of the silver blades raised in front of her face, aimed directly at Arkady. Arkady smirked, followed after

As Slack reached Arkady, she slashed both glaives forwards at the same time as Arkady slashed both of his claws forwards, both of her blades struck Arkady's chest, tearing deep into his torso and remaining stabbed into his ribcage, causing him intense amounts of pain, which showed as his face was twisted into a sick, demented, pain induced frown.

As for his own strike, Slack, through a quick movement, managed to dodge the just of his attack, succumbing only to a right claw slashing across her left arm, all five of his talons digging through her uniform and tearing open five large wounds on her arm, thankfully not deep enough to seriously injure her, but enough to make her know that he was going to let the next hit really count.

The two finished passed each other, both stopping on opposite ends of one another, their backs facing each others, quickly both spun around to face each other, and see what damage they'd inflicted on the other.

Arkady stood with both of the blades stuck in his chest, too preoccupied to remove them, instead fixated on the damage he'd dealt to Slack's left arm, which she covered with her right palm, though the wounds bled more than she was able to contain, with large streams of red liquid flowing off her hand and trickling down into the already disgustingly dirtied and tarnished sewer water, forming a large red puddle in the sea of greenish brown 'water'.

"Looks like I got you Chloe" he said with a smirk, aiming one of his mighty claws at Slack's arm wound, which still bled freely. Slack gritted her teeth as she applied pressure onto her arm wound, gripping her femininly soft arm muscles, which ached with her touch.

The two stood opposite one another, taking deep, ragged and heavy breaths, for what felt like an hour, before she broke the time free spell, breaking it by gazing at the two blades she had stabbed into his chest, a smile spread across her lips.

"Looks more to me like I got you, Arkady" She said as he lowered his head at the blades and saw, much to his horror, what she was referring too, the blue 'handle' of the blades, was continuously flashing a faint blue light, while a mechanical voice counted down from Five. These weren't just blades; they were explosives, explosives which had stuck to him. She'd got him, the stupid, good for nothing bitch had gotten him.

"Aw…shhhhhi" he said, looking up at Slack with distress filled eyes, pleading eyes, the same type of eyes her mother had given him when she feared for her life, this was ironic punishment, punishment which Slack couldn't be more happy about.

* * *

Above ground, Red, Tag, Blizkid and Lightlad, sat and stood, around the still very much alive and jumpy crime scene, jumpy and alive with the sound of reporters who stood, like a pack of wild, rabid, hounds, outside the thin yellow tape that surrounded the crime scene, stabbing their microphones and camera's forwards and shouting questions at the various police officers and crime scene detectives who stood around the area. 

Suddenly, from the ground below them, they're came a soft rumbling, which shook the ground they stood on, each member glanced first at the ground, then one another, they stood staring at one another for a quiet minute before the shaking stopped abruptly.

Down the street from the team, a brown, rusted, manhole began to shake, slowly raising above ground and slipping onto the side of the road, all eyes were suddenly drawn to this new advancement, with both Blizkid and Lightlad aiming their arms, Blizkid having a build up of ice and Lightlad a build up of energy, aimed at the manhole.

The team's spirits were raised when a long, slender, feminine arm, emerged from the open manhole, followed soon after by Slack's head, her face covered slightly with a mix of red and green blood, and after that the remainder of her body.

Quickly, Lightlad and Blizkid rushed over and helped their leader to her feet, offering her support should she need it, like they'd imagined, she refused, thankful and gratefully before turning her head to Red, who sat with a smile on his face, she flashed him a smile which he returned with a nod of his head before getting up, despite the pain it caused, and walking over to her.

"Need a hand?" She asked casually, offering him her shoulder as leverage, Red finished walking towards her and smirked.

"You have no idea, sweet cheeks" He said as he tossed his arm around her shoulder, turning his head towards her and smiled, she smiled at him and gently rubbed her free hand through his scruffy hair.

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I really, and I mean really, want to take a shower" Lightlad said, both Slack and Red turned to him, as well as the rest of the team, which made him fall silent.

"I'll…just, uh…go wait in the car then" he said in a defeated tone as he walked towards the car slowly, Tag following after him in a giddy hop, no doubt to try and cheer him up, Blizkid followed behind her at a quickened pace.

Slack and Red watching them walk to the T-car before turning to one another, it was rare moments like these that made being a super hero, putting her, as well as her team-mates, lives on the line day in and day out, worth every second of it.

"I'd be lying if I said you didn't kick all kinds of ass today" he said in a joking manner as the two moved towards the T-car, slowly as Red's wound forced him to move at a very slow pace.

"Oh yeah?" she asked, going along with his playful banter, not only finding it humorous but also extremely comfortingly, which, after the day she'd been dragged through, was exactly what she needed, someone to comfort her.

"I mean the way you handled those blades….words can't describe the amount of style you showed off today" Red said as they reached the car, she helped him into the passengers seat, there was no way she was letting him drive in the condition he was in.

"So, how'd things go with Caiman?" Sev asked as Slack got into the car.

"Caiman?" Red asked into his device.

"That's what the media's calling him: Caiman the crocodile king...apparently some CSI guy overheard you talking and spilled the beans to the media, and according to him" Sev responded, Red smirked at the incredibly ridiculous names the media gave to their unanimous villains, as if the names they gave themselves weren't bad enough.

"So….how did it go?" Sev asked, as much as Slack wanted not to talk about it, she felt it was important to keep her team's morales up, and if that meant going deep into her pain, finding a slight hint of pleasure she'd taken from killing Arkady and using it to keep her team's spirits high, she felt the sacrifice would be well worth it. She smiled and thought back to what had happened in the sewers, how the bombs she'd stuck to him had exploded and collapsed an entire sewer tunnel atop of him, crushing him into oblivion.

"Let's just say: he's stuck in-between a rock and a hard place at the moment" she said with a well deserved, satisfactory smile on her face.

"But you didn't see him die?" Sev asked, Slack looked worried, what did that have to do with it? She'd seen him get crushed and trapped under dozens of feet of rock, dirt and debris, wasn't that enough? Did she need a freaking death certificate?

"He did get crushed under pounds of rubble, isn't that enough?" She asked, they're was a moment of silence before his voice was heard again.

"Well, some lizards, especially iguanas, have been known to live without oxygen for as long as thirty minutes, and since Arkady was basically a giant Iguana, or so Red described to me, I'd say he could go without Oxygen for….a day and a half at the most" he said, Slack, all of a sudden felt a tinge of depression, which Red noticed as he stared at her.

"What you mean to say is that he's dead…right?" he asked, they're was a second pause before he continued.

"Yeah, probably, I mean, it's very rare for anything to live without oxygen for long periods of time. I'll have Sergeant Scythes send a recovery team tomorrow to make sure though" Sev said. Red took the time to notice that Slack's mood seemed to have brightened at this, slightly, but brightened none the less.

"Well then, if this whole thing's been resolved, let's head on home" Lightlad said from the back of the car, Slack nodded and pressed her foot down on the pedal, starting the cars massive engine and taking them the first step of the way home.

* * *

Several hours had passed by since thier time at the sewers, and it was now late into the night, making this one the fifteenth the team had spent in Hallow City, which had, by this point, grown to accept them as an everyday part of their lives. 

The entire team had spent most of the time since arriving back at the tower-with the exception of the first twenty or so minutes which were dedicated to healing the injuries they'd succumbed to during their mission, though none of the injuries were as bad as previous missions, Red's leg wound being the worst, requiring a brace around his leg to allow him to walk properly-showering off the grime, feces and all other disgustingness that made up the water of Hallow City's sewers, using more than three hundred gallons of water, each, in order to rid the disgusting feeling of sewer water off their bodies, Lightlad alone had gone through twelve bars of soap in the measure of just one shower.

After their showers, the team had gone through the usual, post-mission routine, which they'd familiarized themselves with over the course of the past two weeks, this routine included: eating dinner, which was usually pizza, burgers or any other form of heart stopping, calorie adding, diabetes causing fast food, the pizza was always ordered from Nappa's Pizza, Lightlad, Blizkid and Sev's favourite pizza shop. It's owner: Antonio Nappa, an elderly Italian-American man, had taken a shine to Lightlad's wisecracks, and often asked if he was of Italian heritage, which, he couldn't say for certain.

After dinner the team usually settled down by the expansive TV and watched a movie, tonight they watched Sev's 'favourite' which was odd as usually every movie he picked was considered his 'favourite', this movie: Scream Factory 13: The Revenge of The Ghost-man, was what the team had come to call a 'Sev' movie, which were usually plot less, gore fests, filled with scantily clad women, grim looking heroes, whose appendages, arms or legs, were usually replaced by typical, every day items, and giant, usually always rabid, monsters.

The movie was typically followed by the exchange of 'good night's', well wishes and fears of bed bugs biting, afterwards the team retreated back into their domains, spending the remainder of the night sleeping off their blues.

By this time of night, Slack had showered, dried off and just finished dressing in her usual night time attire, a pair of bluish white pajama bottoms, a pink pajama top and a pair of pink bunny slippers, a present from Tag, which, despite the 'over-cuteness' of the gift, she still cherished and wore them.

As she traveled around her room, looking for the one, extra fluffy, pink pillow she was sure she'd left lying around, she found herself again facing the hard wood desk and the depressing thoughts it provoked.

Swallowing hard, she walked towards it, sat down in the small, leather recliner stationed behind the desk and picked up the pictures for a second time that day.

She thumbed through the pictures; trying her hardest to stop herself from crying at the painful memories they brought on, but, like before, found it too hard a task to complete.

She couldn't do it, even with Arkady dead, she found herself mourning over the loss, killing him didn't bring them back, it couldn't, it didn't help her put this whole thing behind her, not in the slightest, and it never would, never. No matter how hard she tried.

Feeling the tears beginning to form in her eyes, she knew she couldn't hold them back, that she couldn't' stop them from spilling loose; instead she accepted it and began to weep, silently, but still fiercely. Streams of tears spilling from her eyes, her head buried deep in a pillow made from her arms.

She felt a hand touch her shoulder, shocking her and causing her to spin around in the chair quickly, only to come face to face with Red, who stood behind her uneasily, something attributed to the large, black, brace strapped onto and around his right leg.

She wiped away the remainder of her tears with her wrist, swallowed back the nerve she had to break out in tears and looked him directly in the eyes, which at the moment looked more sympathetic than she'd ever seen them look before.

She tried to say something, to defend herself in his presence, to pretend, like she'd done countless times before, that she hadn't been crying, but just….yawning, or whatever lame, sorry excuse she could think of, but she couldn't, she couldn't do anything other than lay her head on his shoulder and burst out into tears, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, gently squeezing onto the hard, defined, muscles which ran along his back, while burying her head deeper into his shoulder.

Red brought his own arms up to her back, gently running his hand through her hair like he'd done earlier that day, at the risk of sounding like a pervert, he liked the way her hair felt, it was soft, gently and silky-like, as if that were a word, but it was true none-the-less.

"Shhh. It's ok, it's ok" he whispered into her ear, trying to sooth her out of her bad mood, if he was half the 'soother' he thought he was….well then he wasn't doing a very good job, but, from the look on Slack's face, a look that looked to him like a mix of sorrow and relaxation, apparantly he was doing a good job.

The two held the warming, calming, embrace for some time, with Slack's head now resting gently against his shoulder, her eyes almost entirely free of her distress created tears, with Red still patting her head gently. Finally, after an extended period of time, Slack finished crying, wiped the remainder of her tears away with her wrist and moved her body backwards, with her arms still grabbing a tentative hold on Reds forearms.

She looked him directly into the eyes, staring deep into the bluish brown eyes, the ones which she found herself staring at time and time again, the thought brought a smile to her lips and allowed her the strength to speak.

"You must think I'm the softest girl in the world, seeing me cry twice in one day" She said in a shaky voice, her words constantly being broken by forced back sobs, turning her head away from his in a mix of shame and shyness.

Red cupped her chin in his hand and gently tilted her head back to face him, her eyes still held a tint of sadness in them, and he couldn't blame her, after everything she'd been through, and in just one day. No one wanted to re-live the terrible experiance of their parents demise, nor did anyone want to meet the man responsible, or have to fight and kill him, but she'd done all three, in one day's time, less actually, more like three hours time, three hours being the estimated time of their mission, but either way, he could understand why she'd be so filled with sorrow.

"Not at all. After everything you've been put through, the pain you've felt and dealt with…you're not 'soft' at all. Slack, you happen to be the toughest girl I've ever met...and that's no lie, I promise you" he said softly, she again found the strength to muster a soft smile, which she flashed for him, causing him to smile, slightly, but still a smile.

"If it'll make you feel better, I can say that I used to cry all the time. I cried when my old man starved me so badly that I felt like I could eat my own fingers to stop the pain coming from my stomach. I cried when he beat me bad enough that I could barely walk, and I cried the day he died, because, as much as I hated him, as much as he hated me and as much as it pained me to live with him, I knew no one deserved to die the death he did, not even him, not even after all the pain he caused to me-" Red said in a down trodden tone. "-It's when you stop crying, when you loose touch with you're feelings, when you can't feel anything inside yourself but hate, that tears at you, eating away at your insides, that you're really lost"

Slack suddenly felt a huge amount of guilt rush through her body, she felt selfish, she felt spoiled, here she was crying over the loss of parents who'd died defending her, parents who'd raised and nurtured her, parents who'd loved her, when Red had cried, all those times, over the abuse from and eventual loss of a parent who hated and despised him. Words coudn't describe the amount of sympathy she felt for him, it was almost more than the sympathy she felt for her own parents, almost.

"Red, I'm so sorry" She said uneasily, it wasn't that she didn't feel sorry for him, because, truly and honestly she did, it was just...well, she'd never been good at talking to or about people's pasts, apparantly Red could tell as he smiled faintly and stroked the left side of her head with his index finger, a gesture which brought her a great deal of warming comfort.

"Don't be. Not for me, but for yourself, don't live with my guilt on your conscious, it's not worth it, trust me" he said softly, the last thing he wanted was for someone else, someone like herself, who truly shouldn't be dragged into the crap he'd been dragged into himself, he'd learned once that dragging others into his own pain was a stupid idea...and the guilt of the experiance haunted him to this day.

Slack stared into his eyes, which were so full of hate, hurt, pain, sorrow, distress, she could use every word in the dictionary to describe how 'sad' his eyes looked, really she could, but she couldn't bare to. She could understand why he was such a hate filled person and she couldn't blame him, no one could live life without someone to love them, and, if what Red said was true, not that she doubted his word, than he truly had no one who loved him….or so he thought.

Placing both hands on his cheeks, she began to gently pull his head towards her own with Red putting up no resistance to this new development. Slowly as his head reached her own she pressed her lips up against his, kissing him with a fiery mix of passion, care, concern and, what might even be called, love. For all she knew, she was in love with him, though she'd never admit it to him, or any one else on the team for the matter, if she was, that was. The more she thought about it, the idea of being in love with Red, the more she found herself enjoying what she was doing at the moment, and it didn't seem like Red minded either as he was now kissing her back, with an equal level of emotion as she showed, running his hand through her hair as he did.

It was odd to her how the fates had transpired to put the two together like this yet again, having the two of them been in near identical positions, save for the kiss, two weeks prior, call it a coincidence, fate or whatever you wanted too, but this was definitely a sign of something. Maybe things were finally looking up for her, she had a family, maybe not a literal, blood related, family, but they were her family never the less and she loved them every bit as much as she did her real family.

After a short time, the two broke off the kiss, with Slack's hands placed gently around Red's, before pulling him into a hug, her head again resting on his shoulder, her lips beside his ear.

"Thank you, for everything you've done to help me" she whispered into his ear as she pressed her lips gently against his cheek, gently stroking his left cheek with her index finger, running her finger through the patch of hair that shot down from the top of his head, gently curling his hair playfully.

"It was a pleasure. Besides, the reward was well worth it" he said with a flirtatious grin, she flashed him a smile which held an equal level of flirtation as his did. She had to admit, at times he could be extremely charming, and this was one of them, she lost the fliratious smile and gave him a heart warming and love filled smile, before nuzzling deeper into his shoulder, solidifying the loving, warming, embrace the two held.

Slowly Red tilted her heads towards his own so that the two's eyes were directly linked with one another's, Red was relieved to find that her eyes no longer possessed the disappointed, depressed look they had only minutes prior, maybe, just maybe, that meant he was doing a good job.

"Chloe" He said softly, running his hand through her hair gently, she looked up at him with her deep blue eyes penetrating into his stare, filling him with a sense of sadness.

"I'm sorry, I didn't meant to upse-" He began to say, trying to defend himself for accidentally upsetting her, he honestly hadn't meant too, it was just, Chloe was such a nice name, at least to him it was, maybe she didn't see it that way. Maybe that's why she was upset. He hated how he could do something like this, how he could unpurposefully ruin the mood of a moment, he really did.

"It's ok, it's ok, it's just..." She said, falling silent after the first couple of words, she began to look away from him, moving her gaze onto the floor.

"What?" he asked with a saddened curiosity, he tried to make it up to her by stroking the underside of her chin with his thumb softly, which seemed to work as she smiled up at him, allowing him to know this was a good sign.

"It's just that, now that you know my name I feel like you know so much about me…..and I don't know anything about you, I mean I don't know you're name and...well...I don't know" She said in a voice that carried an "I'm unsure of what I mean" spirit with it, Red smiled, bent down and placed a kiss on her forehead gently.

"James. My name is James. James Tobias Rooks" he said with a smile.

Slack suddenly felt a new kind of warmth, or as she now figured it to be, love for Red, or James, as she'd now learned his name to be. He'd just shed his skin, come out of his shell, given up the one identity that he still held as a dear secret: his own, and she couldn't have been more happy, not just for him, but also for herself, as it helped her to better understand him, and that's what she'd been hoping for this entire time, to better understand and get to know her team better, and so far it looked like she was walking down that path queit well.

Knowing that the two shared a bond where not so much as their names were secrets from one another meant that they could trust each other with things which were more personal and private than could be shared with the rest of the team, which was both good and bad in their own little ways.

The good was that this was another step up the mighty ladder the two would have to climb to one day achieve the goals they wished to achieve, which Slack now believed to be a relationship, not just a 'crush' or 'attraction' kind of relationship like she could read about in the tabloids, but an actual, emotionally and spiritually fufilling relationship, the kind she'd been without for far too long.

The bad was now that they had formed this relationship...this bond, they would no longer see each other in the same light as they did a day ago, they would no longer see each other as just Slack and Red, they would see each other as Chloe and James, and, without the proper amount of restraint, they're emotions, for one another, might interfere with their duties on the team...but that was a risk both were willing to take.

As the two held the same loving embrace they'd been holding for what felt like an eternity to one another, Red suddenly felt the urgency to find out exactly how long they had spent together, not that he minded the idea of being with Slack, which he surely didn't, it was just that he knew, as well as she did, that if the two missed out enough sleep, or were found in the same room the next day, the team would surely get suspicious of their nightly activities, and, with all the suspicion the two of them already created, he couldn't blame them if they found this to be any more suspicious.

He glanced at the wall mounted clock across from Slack's shoulder, which read 1:14 with a bright green florescent glow, Jesus, he'd spent an hour and a half in her room, not that he was complaining, the more time he spent with her, the more he found himself at piece with himself, which, living in the constant mixed state of rage and self hate he did, he found a nice relaxing break from things…but, reminding himself of what he'd thought minutes prior, he knew what needed to be done.

Sighing to himself he gently broke off the embrace he and Slack held, she looked at him curiously, filling him with a sense of sadness, which was only momentary as she too glanced at the clock, she too sighed, it wasn't fair, things had been going so well between the two of them, frowning she knew that nothing good can ever last, she knew that all too well.

The two began to walk towards her door, slowly at first as neither really wanted to leave, finally picking up their pace halfway to the door, finally they reached the tall, silver, door which acted as the exit of Slack's room and to the entrance to the hallway. Red stopped before the door as did Slack, staring once again into each others eyes, Red frowned and went to press the small 'open' button on her door, before he was stopped by her hand, which gripped his gently and brought it, along with it's partner which was gently grasped by her other hand, down to her sides, before staring him in the eyes again, she smiled, leaned forwards and kissed him on the lips for a second time, before leaning back backwards, breaking off the kiss.

"You call that a kiss?" he asked, his tone carrying a playfull taunt with it before giving her the same flirtatious grin he'd given her earlier, she smiled at him before he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into a deep, passion filled kiss, a kiss which could rival the one she gave him earlier.

After a short minute of the kiss, Red pulled his head away, looked her dead in the eye, smiled and ran his hand through her hair again, fondling her cheek gently with his fore and middle finger.

"Goodnight Chloe" he said, gently pressing his finger down on the 'open' button on the keypad, causing the door to slide open with a gentle 'whish' noise, she smiled and stroked her fingers behind his ear, gently massaging the nerves which lay behind them, like she would a dog, though he was in no way a dog...more like a tiger, lion or any other kind of fericious, yet gentle, creatures she'd read about in magazines, the ones who put their lives before those of their cubs and life mates, which Red surely would do.

"Goodnight James" She said, leaning forwards to give him the final kiss for the night, a gentle peck on the right cheek, which he rubbed with his forefinger for a slight second before heading out the door, which closed after him with the same 'whish' noise it'd made seconds prior.

As the door finished closing, Slack released a heavy breath, ran a hand through her hair and lay back against the wall beside the door, slumping all the way to the floor. She continued to run her hands, the second one, the left, joining with it's sister seconds earlier, through her hair. She shook her head from side to side vigorously, she had a crush on Red, or maybe she was in love with him, she didn't know, all she knew was that she couldn't live without him and wished desperately that he felt the same way about her.

Sighing heavily she got up, ran a hand through her hair for what she hoped to be the last time and walked over to her bed. She pulled the covers back and sunk deep into the comfy confines of her fluff like mattress, before pulling the silk like covers over her body, smiling happily as she relived the last hour and a half of her life, and how being with Red had made her truly happy, she felt like nothing could make her depressed, nothing could make her sad again, nothing….she liked this new feeling, she liked it a lot.

* * *

Deep in Hallow City's sewer system, a small, black rat, distinguishable from the rest of it's pack by a large white spot on top of it's head, scurried through the debris, rubble and remains of the broken sewer system he'd just so recently called home. 

The rat crossed over several rocks, each one stretching a not so hard to cover distance, looking desperately for a bite of food to eat. It's prayers were answered in the form of a large, chunk of flesh poking through the rubble, he rushed towards the flesh and prepared to take a bite form it when the land beneath his feet began to rumble, before the land below his feet began to move. Trying desperately to escape from this moving land, only for it's efforts to be shot down, or rather, crushed, quite literally as the creature was squeezed by a large, green, scaly hand, which shot out from the rubble, followed soon after by a large, green, scaly, head, which stared around at it's surroundings for a quiet second before uttering a silent curse, a curse directed at one particular individual, who happened to be none other than Slack, or more rather, Chloe Stevens….the individual who'd trapped him in the hellhole he now lay under.

Finishing squeezing the life out of the rat, he opened his massive jaws, placed half the rat's body underneath his massive fangs and bit down, slicing the creatures body in half, half of it he swallowed in one giant gulp and the rest he held in his palm.

He smirked at the dead creature's torso and tossed it away from his body violently, sending it flying half a dozen feet across the rubble before landing in a puddle with a quiet 'splash'. Now that he was fed he had only one thing on his mind, one thing aside from escaping the rubble which held him prisoner that was, and that thing was Revenge.

* * *

Well...that's chapter nine...did you enjoy? I know I sure as hell did. 

Now I know what you're thinking (Talk about Psychic), you're probabbly thinking "Man, The Captian J.T. Wolfe is sooo badass, let's give him lots of money"...and if that's not what you're thinking than you're probabbly thinking something along the lines of "Dude! Slack and Red getting togheter already? What were you thinking?" Well if you are thinking that, I can tell you that I'm not done with Red and Slack...not by a long shot, I've got so many plans to throw a wrench into their developing relation ship that I wouldn't be surpised if many of you hated me after I'm done.

While still on the topic of Slack and Red (Man...I like writing those two names, they sound good one after another): I'll be the first to say (and the only one since I'm the only one who knows) that the scene with Red and Slack at the end of this chapter almost wasn't. At first I wanted it to be an exact remake of the last scene from the last chapter, but I figured you guys would eat me up if I did that, so instead I changed it to a quick peck on the cheek from Slack and a 'good night' but that seemed too...light, and since I don't want this story to turn out to be the Diet Coke of fluff, and since I kept you fans waiting for soo long for this chapter, I figured I'd put two and two togheter and do something we can all enjoy...and hopefully you did.

And while were still hanging onto the topic of 'couples' (Not that we ever were really on that topic), I've decided that Blizkid shouldn't be so lonely (One of the first flaws I found with him was that he really needed someone to confide in, someone who wasn't Tag or Red), so as such I've decided that the chapter after the next one (That's 2 chapters if you didn't know) will be not only focus almost entirely on him but will also be dedicated to finding Blizkid a soul mate.

And, while still lingering on the topic of Trivia, I might as well give out the little bit of Trivia that appears in this chapter: First off, all the medical mumbo jumbo in this chapter is utter and complete crap I made up in my head, but I tried (Really I did) to make it sound legit, I mean I looked all over Google, Wikipedia...that about does it for my information searching. But if it doesn't make sense and any of you are specialists in the feilds of medical sceinces, I wouldn't get mad at you for sending me a flame over it, just remeber: I'm not a Harvard Graduate, I'm just a guy who writes story's.

Another thing (Not Trivia...well not really): I wrote the scenes at the end (I might as well call them 'The love scenes') between Red and Slack while listening to Too Much Love Will Kill You By Queen. So, if you really want to get a 'feel' for the scene, I'd read it while listening to that song. Again, this is not really triva, more like a helpful suggestion and waste of about fifty or so words.

Next Chapter: Lightlad takes the stage as he's thrust into a very, very, akward situation. After saving a girl his age from an otherwise deadly fate, he finds himself bombarded with not only her thanks, but her undying affection, but after realizing his feelings for another and letting her down gently, he finds himself with another problem, her affection towards him will force her to take matters into her own hands and she's determined to get her hands on Lightlad one way or another.

Well that does it for me, hope you enjoyed reading this chapter half as much as I enjoyed writing it (If so than you enjoyed it a lot more than I imagined), take care now, and until next time, keep on rockin' in the free world.


	10. Chapter 10: Muse

Summary: Follow the adventures of Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid and Sev members of the newly organized Teen Titans H.C defending Hallow City from the perilous dangers it faces day-in-day-out. They'll have to face an assorted array of villains including, A psychotic gang lead by a team of super powered teens, a deadly bounty hunter with a mysterious link to one of the Titans, a bloodthirsty werewolf willing to turn any one in his way into a midnight snack and a multi billion dollar genetics corporation that's not all that it seems to be to name a few. But their most dangerous threats come from facing and overcoming each others assorted pasts as a team. Expect tons of guest appearances by the original Titans as well as other D.C. Comics heroes and villains.

* * *

Welcome back ladies and gentleman. It's been a while hasn't it? But thankfully the months of neglect I've forced upon you the reader are over, instead it'll be nothing but this chapter for the next twenty to thirty minutes of you're life. As per usual, the next paragraph or so will be taken up by what I like to call "Pre-story Trivia" so, as usual, if you're not interested in reading about the hardships I had to face to create this chapter (Of which there were many), then just scroll past it. 

First Off and most importantly: I'd like to formally apoligize for the severe lateness of this chapter, my only excuse is that halfway through it's production, I got a bad, bad, bad, case of writers block, which lasted at least a week. It's a weak excuse I know but it's the truth, but, some good did come of the writers block, as I was able to begin work on a Red centered chapter (Which, depending on how I play my cards, might be the chapter I put on after the next one...or maybe not, you never know).

Secondly: I'd Like to give special thanks to Death Jester who helped out, alot, with this chapter's plot, story and characters, basically, if it hadn't been for him, this chapter might not have ever seen the light of day.If I could give him a 'co-author' label I would (That's how much he helped out). So, big thanks to you. I'd also like to thank: Splint, Program X.A.N.A., Uberscribe and Glacier alchemist, who all reviewed. I know I say this a little to often, but, you guys really are what makes me want to continue writing this story, so, go ahead, give yourselves a pat on the back, you've earned it.

Thirdly: (This one's slightly less serious then the others, but it's still pretty serious), I made a pretty big (well actually, not that big) mistake last chapter in regards to Red's real name. His name should only be James Rooks, not James Tobias Rooks, so, yeah...not that big a deal I just thought I'd let you know.

Fourthly (I really hate to drag these out like this, but you gotta do what you gotta do): This chapter, like the last one, is seperated between past and present with the use of my favorite writing tool: Flashbacks, so, if you hated the flashbacks last chapter...hopefully these will be better. Also, the act of having the character waking up from their flashback will be re-occuring theme, so don't think I got lazy and just coppied last chapters intro and incorporated it into this chapter...cause that's only half of the story.

Finally: A disclaimer: I do not own any of the Teen Titans, Jump City or any other D.C. Comics owned property. This is a non-profit work of fiction. Fortunatly, I am able to say that I do own the characters: Slack, Red, Lightlad, Tag, Blizkid, Sev, Nikki Night as well as any other characters in this chapter who arn't already owned by D.C. Comics.

Well, with all that said, I guess the only thing left for me to do is start this chapter...so, here goes:

* * *

Chapter 10: Muse

* * *

_Jump City.  
One Year Ago._

_Deep in the luxurious and expansive downtown of Jump City, sat a quiet and quant little coffee shop which was hidden away from the public eye by the large, industrial buildings surrounding it, leaving it's presence to be known only by few if any at all._

_The shop held a small number of 'regulars', or reoccurring customers as they would be known elsewhere, leaving it with a lonely, but at the same time, familiar 'family' like feeling, the kind of feeling one receives when meeting with relatives or other family members that they hadn't seen in some time._

_Currently all the patrons in the coffee shop had their attention focused on the small, wooden podium, where a local jazz band: The Tainted Blues played a rendition of the song "What a Wonderful World". _

_As the band finished playing the song, receiving a medium level of applause from the audience, the door to the coffee shop swung open loudly- though in no way the opener's fault, rather the fact that the door hadn't been well maintained for some time-a move which immediately received the attention from each and every member of the building._

_In the doorway to the coffee shop stood the blackened silhouette of a teenaged boy, a gleam of bright light shinning off of him creating a golden gleam to form around his body, a gleam which assaulted the eyes of those staring directly into it. _

_The teen emerged from the glow of light he'd stood in previously, slowly walking across the floor, heading towards a small, black tinted booth that sat in the farthest corner of the room. The teen made each move with the knowledge that the entire coffee shop, patrons and staff, stood watching his every movement, though this went unnerved by him._

_  
Finally he arrived at the booth and took a seat, before raising his head, looking towards the sea of eyes that stared at him, all of which slowly turned away from him as he looked at them. _

Soon after he'd seated himself at the booth, an attractive waitress, who couldn't have been much younger than he was, approached the table. She was dressed in, what he assumed to be, the typical work uniform, which consisted of a pair of blue dress pants, a casual white T-shirt and an apron atop of it all. Her long, shoulder lenght, brown hair was set loose, draped across her shoulders, apparantly the servers wern't required to wair hear nets, though he could hardly say he found it offensive that they wern't wearing them.

_"That was some entrance" She said jokingly. The teen looked up to face her and noticed that her face held a look of content, like she'd enjoyed his previous display of discontent, which was a nice change from the 'regular' looks he'd been getting from the other patrons._

"_I take it you guys don't get a lot of new customers" he said, the waitress's smile increased as she drew a pen from her uniform's front pocket. _

"You have no idea-"she said as she clicked the pen against her cheek, ejecting the pen's ink coated silver tip "-though the other day Raven from the Teen Titans came in here"

_The teen's undivided attention had been captured by this last comment, he smirked, angrily, to himself at the name Raven, before exhaling a puff of air and returning his gaze towards the waitress. _

"Really?" he asked, the waitress nodded her head and raised her arm, pointing towards the corner of the restaurant, where a small, blue, velvet booth sat.

"She sat right there. I served her myself you know? She's a lot like she is on the TV, soft spoken, rarely said more than three words at a time. To tell you the truth I could hardly tell her apart from any one else in the cafe" She said with a smile as she withdrew a small pad of paper from her uniform.

_The teen smiled at her joke, stared back at the booth, which was now inhabited by an elderly African American man, before turning his head back towards the waitress, glancing up into the waitress's eyes. _

"_So, what can I get for you?" she asked as she brought the pen down to the pad of paper. Gently he grabbed the small, leather coated menu from the table, thumbed through it quickly and turned back to her. _

"It says here that you guys make the best cappuccino's in town" he said as he closed the flaps on the menu.

"They should be I make them myself" the waitress said in a playful voice, flashing him a flirtatious grin which he returned with his own brand of ego-induced flirtation.

"Then I'll have one of those" he said handing her the menu, she grabbed it gently and pulled it from his hand, doing all of her actions in the same aura of playfulness that he held.

"Coming right up" she said as she walked off, heading back towards the small kitchen at the back of the restaurant.

As the waitress headed through the two silver doors that led to the kitchen the teen relaxed in his seat, sinking down a half a foot in the chair he sat in. He was used to having women, usually girls at his school, flirt with him, and he felt no way uncomfortable with it, but they're was something about this girl, that he couldn't put his finger on. Maybe it was that she wasn't 'fake' like the girls at his school, or anywhere else for the matter. He meant of course the kinds of girls who dressed in two hundred dollar pieces of desighner clothing and would never have to work a day in their lives, or maybe it was that after the hellish week he'd been put through all he needed was a friendly smile, which she seemed more than obliged to give him.

After a short while the waitress returned, sans uniform, with both his cappuccino as well as a cup of yellow tea, the waitress, or rather, without her uniform, the girl, placed the cappuccino in front of the teen and the tea on the spot opposite him, before sitting down in the seat.

"_My break just started, and I couldn't think of any way that I'd rather spend the next fifteen minutes. I hope you don't mind" she said as she took a sip of her tea, the teen smiled. _

"Of course not" he said as he took a sip of his own drink, the girl smiled and held out her left hand.

_  
"I'm Nicole" she said, the teen smiled and gently grasped her hand with his own, shaking it lightly in the process. _

"I'm Sam" He said.

* * *

Slowly a pair of light brown eyes began to open, taking a moment to adjust themselves to the surrounding, before a pair of hands, one covering each eye, began to rub them, rubbing away the small excess of 'dirt' that had collected in the corners of each one. 

Finally as the pair of hands finished their task they returned back where they'd been held before, back to the sides of the torso of the man, or rather, teen, they belonged to, the torso of Lightlad, who lay in his bed, clutching the sides of his chest in an effort to regain the warmth he, along with the room, had lost during the night.

Slowly, realizing he was way past the point where he could fall back to his previous state of deep sleep, he decided that he might as well get up and prepare for the upcoming day.

Stretching his arms forwards, Lightlad yawned loudly and slowly rose his body up into the air, moving from a laying, fetal-like, position, to a upright, yet still slouched, sitting position.

Curling his arms back down towards his body he kicked himself out of the bed, knocking his covers across the deep blue, velvet like carpeting that lay across the room's floor, before standing upwards and staring at his surroundings, staring at the room he called his own.

Lightlad's room, much like the others room, was immensely large and extremely open, though, unlike the other's rooms, his had remained that way, with very little of his room being taken up by possessions which he owned, leaving it with an empty, yet comfortable feeling to it.

Lightlad began to walk across the room, slowly stripping his pyjama's-which consisted of a pair of 'Rat-man' pyjama bottoms, an extra large white T-shirt and a pair of heart patterned boxers- as he did, tossing them left, right and center, not really caring where they landed, he'd have time to clean them up later.

Finally as he was stripped down to his boxers he grabbed his costume, which was draped loosely over one of the room's lonely possessions, a leather arm chair, tossed it over his shoulder and entered the bathroom.

A short time later Lightlad exited the bathroom, now showered with his costume now covering his once unclothed body, he stretched his arms in the air and gave yet another excessively loud and-had anyone been in the room at the time-rude yawn before bringing his arms back down to his waist.

He stood there, in the same spot in his room, for a solid five minutes, doing nothing but thinking, thinking about the day, what he'd done before this day, what he'd do after it, and most of all, what he would to on it, there was something, something he'd been thinking of doing on this day, something of the utmost importance.

Slowly the memories came back to him and he recalled what exactly it was he'd been looking forwards to, how could he forget it, it was only the second most important idea he'd had in past month, today was the day, the day he asked Tag, his favorite and most admirable team-mate, out, and hopefully the day she said yes.

It wasn't like this idea, this plan, this action, came unprovoked, he had after all been flirting, be it lightly, with her all week, and, the week before that, and the week before that and so forth, and, if he wasn't mistaken, she'd been returning his flirt with one of her own. There were several hints, or so he assumed them to be, that she cared for him the way he did for her, the first was when she'd saved him from becoming road kill when an unmanned eighteen wheeler sped down the road he was ready to cross, not that that sounded out of the blue from a typical rescue, but the strength in which she grasped onto him when she was doing it, and the scolding she'd given him afterwards for not looking both ways when crossing the street were more than enough reason for him to believe she had the same feelings for him that he had for her.

Besides, even if she didn't return his affection, he could always pretend like the date was a way of him thanking her for the countless times she'd saved his sorry ass from a less than likable fate.

With that thought in his mind, as well as a way for him to approach Tag and ask her the question itself, he continued his train of thought as he walked out of his room and headed down the hall, heading towards the elevator.

As he stood in the elevator, which slowly and at the same time loudly, crept up the long, wide elevator shaft which led up to the lounge, he kept thinking about how much he was looking forwards to seeing Tag, there was something about her that he found extremely, attractive and at the same time adorable, and he had to say he did indeed adore her. He adored her child like smile, he adored her exotic accent and most of all he adored her fun loving, good natured and well rounded attitude, mostly because it was a contrast to his uptight, sarcastic, rude and abrasive attitude, an attitude which at times he wished he could drop and replace with the one she had.

In his life, Lightlad had dated many girls, the exact number he couldn't count on one hand, though the majority of whom he had never really connected with or shared any sort of 'feelings' with, due, in part, to the fact that he dated them only to fill the empty void in his life that his negligent parents had left on him.

The lack of any real 'love' in his life left him with a sense of emptiness that was rarely ever filled, though he did try to replace it with his sense of humour which did little more than remind him of why he was trying to fill the void, so to speak. But with Tag he truly did feel like the 'void' or 'emptiness' inside him was full. Her smiles, her laugh, every little thing she did he adored, and it had been a really long time since he'd ever felt this way towards another person, there were only two times the 'emptiness' had been filled, the first was when he had his first pet, a small, black cat named: Sergeant Whiskers, a name which he'd penned at the early age of six, and the other time he'd felt this way was when he was in his relationship with Nicole, but, like much of his past life, he didn't want to think about, instead he pushed the thought of Nicole, Sergeant Whiskers and all the other thoughts he'd thought of just minutes prior to the back of his mind and focused on the day at hand.

Swallowing lightly, he glanced up at the small panel atop the elevator doors which displayed "Lounge" with a bright, white, glow, he smiled to himself as he thought about seeing Tag for the first time that day, and slowly awaited the doors to open.

As the doors to the elevator opened Lightlad was pleasantly surprised to find that the site he'd been looking forwards to all day was present right before his eyes. There, standing directly in front of the open doors, was Tag with that golden smile he admired so much attached to her face.

"Hello, Lightlad' She greeted cheerfully before walking towards him, he smiled a 'I can't wait until I can tell her my secret' kind of smile, as she reached him and began walking towards the couches where Blizkid and Sev sat, with Tag following along beside him.

Blizkid sat on the couch with his legs folded up into a 'butterfly' like seat, his tounge petruding from his mouth as he focused his undevided attention on the onscreen action. To the right of him, Sev lay on the couch in an upside down position, with his legs curled over the back rest and his head gently draped over the leg rest. Both teens clutched a solid white video game controller, in the shape of a circular boomerang, in their hands as they engaged in an 'intense' game of "Extreme Shopping 2: Fifty Percent Off Mania".

Lightlad drew closer to the couch, where both of the battling teens turned, though only for a slight second, to greet their now awake friend and fellow team-mate, before turning back to face the large TV, ignoring their friend, for the moment, and continuing their virtual duel.

As Lightlad continued his assent into the room he managed to catch a glimpse of the two team-mates he had yet to see, the first: Red, stood in the kitchen, his head tucked away inside the refrigerator.

Lightlad noted two things different about Red on this day; the first was his appearance, where Red usually dressed in a somewhat 'trashy' or 'cheap' set of clothing, which, almost always, included a pair of tarnished jeans, muscle shirt and a coat, on this day his 'costume' was different, his set of clothing was different from his usual clothes. This new 'costume' included a pair of clean blue jeans which clung to his waist with the assistance of a silver studded belt which ended with an oval shaped lock.

Above his pants he wore a fashionable grey muscle shirt with a red "R" emblem imbedded in the middle of the shirt, this being one of the over three dozen "Red-shirts" he'd been given for free, a by-product of an endorsement deal with one of Hallow City's major clothing realtors: Megapress Clothes. At first Red had shunned the idea of endorsing a product, but after some convincing by Slack and the knowledge that fifty percent of profits went to a charitable cause, Red allowed it.

The second thing Lightlad noticed about Red was that, after he pulled his head from the fridge he saw, much to his shock and awe that Red had not an angered frown or an annoyed grin, but a smile, a genuine, honest to goodness smile, attached to his face, which he had aimed at Slack, who, surprising Lightlad further, returned it to him.

It seemed like since 'The Caiman incident'-a term coined by the media which had run almost as many stories on it as they had when the team had first shown up in Hallow City-which had happened over a week ago, that the two had formed a strong bond with one another, and, had Lightlad not known any better, he might mistake this 'friendly bond' to be a bond which exceeded friendship, but, knowing both Red and Slack, he knew this not to be true….or so he thought, there was still a part in his mind that believed it to be true, be it an extremely small part, an extremely, extremely small part.

As Lightlad leapt on the couch, his eyes glued to the onscreen 'action' he felt a soft ruffle in the couch, the physical sign that someone recently had taken a seat beside him, he turned his head to see a smiling Tag sitting directly next to him, her gentle smile directed at him, he returned it with, what he liked to call, his "heart stealing" smile, a smile which seemed to make those he gave it to go head-over-heels for him, though he could hardly tell if it worked this time, as she turned away from him in a hurry, maybe it had worked after all.

The two sat together, both staring opposite the way the other was seated, so that the two faced away from one another, both in the same attempt to hide their shyness of the other from them. Finally, Lightlad could no longer take the stress that was eating away at his stomach, the stress from hiding away his emotions, it was killing him.

Standing himself up he turned towards Tag, who slowly turned her head to face him, he cleared his throat silently, an attempt to rid himself of the harsh pain that bit at his throat and had prevented him from speaking to her any earlier.

"Could I, uh, speak to you-" He took a moment to stare around the room, he couldn't ask her out in front of everyone, the embarrassment he'd receive from his team-mates if she'd rejected him would surely be too much for him to bare, especially from Sev, he had a knack for insults and this would give him a near endless supply of 'disses' to serve up to Lightlad, no, he needed to do this in private, somewhere if she said no no-one on the team but him and her would know about it. "-uh, maybe somewhere private?" he asked, his voice barely above an audible whisper, Tag, who had managed to hear him, silently nodded her head and rose to her feet, both heading towards the small corner section of the room, a section where none of the members of the team were likely to hear the two talk.

As they reached the corner Tag smiled at Lightlad before leaning backwards and falling over, landing softly on a large green beanbag which cushioned her fall, Lightlad swallowed back his fear and took a seat in one of the leather armchairs, which sat directly left of Tag's beanbag chair.

"Well, here we are, somewhere private. So, what did you have to ask me Lightlad?" Tag asked in an innocent, childlike tone, a tone which made Lightlad want to ask her all the more.

"Well, uh….I was wondering if…uh, maybe, I mean I wouldn't be insulted if you said no….but, uh….well-" Lightlad stuttered while he nervously ran his hand along the back of his neck. Asking girls out had never been this hard for him, but then again, he'd never truly cared what the answer he got from his previous 'askee's' was, this was different, he cared too much for her to say 'yes' that it was almost impossible for him to form the sentence, he was too scared to hear the 'no' he imagined her saying that he couldn't even ask.

Swallowing lightly he made up his mind, he'd ask her this time, no matter the hardship, he had to ask her, he'd never forgive himself if he didn't, even if she said 'no', he still wouldn't forgive himself if this opportunity went to waste. Swallowing again he bit his tongue tightly before taking a deep breath in and preparing to recreate his previous sentence.

"What I meant to say, was, well…I was wondering if maybe, yeah, me and you could uh, go on a da-" he began to ask before the final part of his sentence, the most important part to be exact, was cut off by the loud 'bree-bree-bree' wail of the alarm, which was followed, close suit, by a series of red and yellow light flashes.

Dammit, why did this have to happen to him? Esspecially right now? It was like, for whatever reason it was, trouble seemed to have it out for him, and it truly did have the worst timing. He could be in the middle of washing his, as well as the teams, clothes when a bank was being robbed, or taking a shower when a prison break happened, there must have been something he'd done to deserve this never ending amount of bad karma, maybe it had been the time when he'd flushed his goldfish down the toilet, or broken his neighbours window with a baseball, or more recently when he'd accidently put too much bleach in the washing machine and turned all of Red's clothes light pink.

Right before he could do so much as blink his eyes, the others, including Tag- who'd put the importance of those in danger over herself, something which Lightlad greatly admired- had rushed over to where Sev sat, seated behind his 'crimeputer'.

Lightlad took no time in rushing there himself, it was after all his job, but then again he did wish he could have a bit of fun every once in a while, oh well, these things could wait, there was trouble a foot.

As he reached the computer he saw several of the monitor's display a series of images, the focus of which was a small apartment building-possibly one of the city's oldest, as even in it's current state it showed signs of decay and ruin-ablaze, with dozens of silhouettes displayed behind the walls of flame.

Lightlad sighed, as mean as it sounded, he really didn't want to save them...well, that was a lie, he wanted them to be safe, but wished that he didn't have to do it himself, but the knowledge that no one else in the city had the potential 'life saving skills' that he and the rest of his team did, meant that he had to.

"Looks like a fire downtown" Slack said, ever the one to point out the obvious, but then again, that was her duty as leader, a duty which Lightlad could agree with her team-mates that she carried and served with great integrity and an equal level of care, and for that reason alone, he chose not to insult her like he did the others, or at least not a lot, and definatly not in front of her face, for fear of the consiquences that it would bring with it.

"Now, I might be mistaken here, but arn't there a select group of individuals designated to serve this exact purpose? I believe they're called fire fighters" he asked, sarcasm heavy in his tone. The others frowned at his comment, which wouldn't have normally upset him had it not been for the fact that Tag too was frowning, which sparked a somewhat distant emotion in him: Regret. He regretted saying what he'd just said.

"-not that I'm not up to it" he said in an attempt to salvage his sentence from becoming yet another one of his 'downer' comments, comments that he was pretty sure the others didn't like hearing anywhere near as much as he enjoyed saying them.

The others smiled, which helped to improve his fallen self esteem, but, it wasn't until Tag, who had worn a frown up until this point, broke out one of her own heart warming smiles, that he felt truly refurbished.

"Well, now that that's out of the way. Let's go save us some helpless civilians" he finished, using his best 'action hero' voice, which earned him admiring smiles from most of his team-mates, 'most' with the exclusion of both Red and Sev, who both stood with equal looks of annoyance, though that didn't bother him as he got to see Tag happy and that was all that mattered as of right now.

Smiling to himself at the thought of making her smile, he puffed his chest out proudly and followed after the team, who'd all began to walk towards the elevator.

* * *

_Jump City  
One year ago. _

It had been a week since Sam's tour into the small, downtown café, which he just so happened to now call his 'hangout', a week since he'd made his first impression on the patrons he now called friends, and most importantly, a week since he'd asked Nicole out on a date.

After the two's lively conversation-which had lasted the duration of Nicole's break and shift, as well as had set Sam back more than thirty five dollars which he'd used to buy various drinks and deserts, all in an attempt to increase the time in which he had to chat with Nicole- the two had really hit it off, so to speak. Both finding something about the other that they just couldn't reproduce with others, there was something about the other that they found so…irresistible-for Sam, it was her down to earth attitude which had capptured his heart, as for Nicole, he could guess it was either his wit, looks or any other of his hundreds of charms-which was why the only answer Nicole could have given him when he'd asked her "For a real coffee sometime" was a loud-loud enough to cause the other patrons to turn and stare-"Yes".

Now, a week since that day, Sam was going to meet her at her house, he had a whole day planned out for their date. First: A movie, he heard from a reliable source, a good fiend of his to be exact, that Wicked Scary 3 was a great date movie. The movie was to be followed with a dinner at Le Chafe Italian, an overly priced, but for the most part, romantic restaurant. And, to top it off, at the end of it all, a nice stroll through Jump City park, not bad for a first date, but then again Nicole was worth it. Every penny he'd spend today would be worth it so long as he got to see her happy.

As he stood outside the tall oak door to her house: which was nothing more than simple, small, blue and black tinted bungalow with a grey roof and lightly rusted gutters, he raised his hand to the door and tapped it on it twice,, knocking both times lightly. He felt a small tinge of nervousness as he finished removing his hand from the door, swallowing lightly he tried his hardest not to break a sweat, he could only imagine what Nicole would think if she answered the door to find him soaked in sweat, and it really wasn't pretty.

He waited for the door to swing open and reveal the figure of his beloved…but nothing happened, there was no answer, not for a solid five minutes, only after he was about to knock for a second time did the handle to the door spring to life, spiralling around slightly for a second before the solid green door opened, ever so slightly.

_There, in the slightly opened doorway, stood his little angel: Nicole, only she appeared different, different than she had appeared at the Café. Her hair, which at the café had been let loose, giving her an angelic like appearance, was now rangy with a thick lock of hair covering the left side of her face, and her face, the one he'd fallen in love with, was changed. Where she'd once worn a beautiful smile, she now wore a sorrow filled frown, a frown which tore at his heart like a jagged razor._

"_Sam…I, I didn't think you'd come" She said in a half whisper, half panicked tone, she took a moment to glance behind her, as if she was waiting for something, before turning back to face him. _

"Nicole…are you ok? You look a little funny" he said, there was something wrong here, something really wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it for the life of him.

"Yeah…I'm just, uh…sick, I..uh, had a long night…working double shifts, I had to cover for Ter-" She began to say before she was cut off by a voice from behind her.

"Hey, babe, who's at the door?" a deep voice growled out before a large, muscular, hand gripped the door and slammed it open, revealing not just the remainder of Nicole's figure, but a second figure as well, this one a man's.

The man, or rather, older teen, was a tall, muscular teen with greyish skin, clean cut face and a head full of long, black hair in an un-kept fashion. He wore 'casual' clothing, including torn and tarnished black jeans held to his pants by a grey belt, a black muscle shirt and a pair of black, fingerless gloves over his palms.

The teen glared at Nicole before giving Sam an angered glare, a glare which would have upset, or even induced a massive sense of dread in most, but then again, Sam had seen a lot in his day, and this muscle bound jerk wasn't the worst of it.

"Who the hell are you!" he boomed as he positioned himself in the open doorway, Sam furrowed his brows into an angry frown and glared up at him.

"I could ask you the same thing" He said, trying his hardest to sound intimidating, which, for someone of both his size-in proportion to the teen-and physique-also in proportion to the teen-he sounded somewhat convincing.

_"The name's Rancid. Johnny Rancid-" The now named teen growled out in his best attempt at imitating the famous film line, though the mix of his lack of class as well as his scratchy and deep voiced ruined any chance he had at sounding anywhere near as phenomenal as the likes of Sean Connery. "-I'm her boyfriend" _

Sam swallowed lightly and turned his head down to Nicole who slowly, and, from the looks of it, painfully, turned away from him, possibly out of shame, he didn't know, as she knelt her head down, the hair around the left side of her face loosened and exposed her left eye, which held, much to Sam's horror, a large, purple, bruise on her left cheek.

"_Nicole….you're face" Sam said in a worried tone, she looked up at him and smiled, faintly, before brushing the hair back over her left eye.  
_

"_I…uh-" she began to say before she was cut off, not by Sam but by Johnny, who had a somewhat panicked, somewhat mean scowl on his face. _

"She fell down some stairs" He said in a low growl as he shot Nicole a look that screamed "Keep you're mouth shut", something which Sam took great offence to, he didn't like violence in general, having raised himself as somewhat of a pacifist, but he was especially offended by violence against women, which to him was the lowest from of violence on the charts.

"_You don't have any stairs" Sam said angrily, Johnny glanced around in a panicked state, he was right, there were no stairs, it was a bungalow not a hi rise suite. _

"She fell down some stairs, people get clumsy sometimes" He said in an attempt to reassure Sam of the 'truth', but much to his dismay, Sam wasn't buying it, not one bit.

"Really? Because those markings look to me like a severe form of blunt force trauma, something you can't get from simply 'falling down stairs'" Sam said, who would have thought that reading some of his fathers scientific textbooks would have paid off?

"You're saying I hit her?" Johnny asked in a panic filled tone of voice. Behind him Nicole swallowed back her fear and cowered further behind Johnny, Sam noticed this and put on a hard expression.

"I didn't have to" He said, Johnny's face fell even more as Sam's face light up like a Christmas tree, he'd won, and, as much as Johnny hated to admit it, he was right, it was a miracle he'd gone this long without being finked out, a miracle that Nicole never ratter him out, a miracle that he'd never been caught, but, now, now he was caught, now he was finked out, now he was going to get in trouble, no, he couldn't let that happen, he wasn't going to go to jail over this little punk and that stupid bitch.

"Go to hell!" He said slamming the door on Sam's face before, spiralling around to face Nicole, who trembled on her side before him, he raised his right hand in the air and stretched out his fingers, ready to swipe his entire palm ferociously at her face for making him look like a fool.

As he stood above the trembling Nicole, ready to swing his palm fowards he felt a hand grasp his, squeezing it roughly, spinning around he was met, face-to-fist with a thick set of knuckles that collided with his nose, breaking it on impact and sending him stumbling backwards before falling over and landing on his backside..

Covering his broken nose with his left hand, in an attempt to stop the bleeding, Johnny looked up to see Sam standing over his knocked over body, his right knuckle drenched in his own blood, Johnny gritted his teeth angrily and growled out an expletive, an expletive rhyming with "Runt".

Placing his free hand behind his body, Johnny got up to his feet and, normally, would have made an attempt on Sam, but the look in the younger teen's eye and the way he shielded Nicole's body with his own, he knew that Sam would kill Johnny if he had too, so, instead of swinging a revenge fuelled blow at Sam he only frowned and headed out the door, defeated.

Sam watched as Johnny walked down the street, every step taking him farther and farther away from the house, and more importantly, farther and farther away from Nicole, finally Johnny stopped at the end of the block, where a bus stop stood, he turned back to face the house, raised his arm, slowly extended his middle finger and spat on the cement, Sam smiled, he'd won, for once in his sad, miserable life, he'd won. He felt more alive at the moment than he had in a very, very, long time.

As he turned around to face Nicole he felt a pair of arms wrap their way around his neck, as Nicole pulled him into a deep, passionate, kiss, a kiss which made Sam's eyes widen in a mix of shock and stun. Though this wasn't his first kiss, he'd given that one away ages ago, but it sure did feel like it was, as, unlike his first kiss this one was done with love, concern…with feelings, not just to win a stupid game of 'spin the bottle'.

Breaking off from the kiss Nicole pulled her head back and stared into his eyes for a solid minute before speaking.

"Thank you, so much. No one's ever stood up for me before" She said as she pulled him into a hug and rested her head on his shoulder, Sam smiled and began to gently run his hand through her hair.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, she turned her head away from him and he instantly began to regret asking her that.

"I was ashamed, ashamed that I'd loved him, ashamed that he hit me, ashamed that I'd let him….but I swear, the day I met you at the café, I fell in love with you and wanted to be with you, but when I tried to break up with him...well, that's where I got this nice little 'beauty mark'" She said as she fought back tears, Sam, sensing the despair in her voice tried to make his next move an educated one.

Sam smiled, cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her head to face his, she tried to shy away, she was ashamed at how she looked, she was hideous, no one wanted to date a liar, nor did they want to date a hideous freak.

"You're beautiful" he said as if he were reading her thoughts, she stared up at him again, staring him dead in the eyes, she could tell, from the way he looked at her, that unlike Johnny, he wasn't lying, he meant it.

She leaned into his shoulder, burying her head in his embrace, trying to hide herself as he began to run a hand through her hair, she tilted her head to face him and found, much to her delight, his face held a firm smile on it.

"So, you ready for our date?" he asked, she smiled, lightly at first but when she saw the sincerity in his eyes her smile doubled in size and length, she nudged closer into her embrace before taking his left hand and allowing him to lead her out the door, in a gentleman like fashion.

* * *

The fire was large, too large; in fact massive was a better word to describe this fire, it was a massive fire which had almost completely obliterated the top two floors of the Maple Street Apartment Complex. 

Two fire trucks as well as dozens of firefighters stood at the base of the building, though it was hardly of any use, the fire was just too intense, anyone left inside…well they were as good as dead, or at least that was the idea that was traveling around.

But all of the lost hope was soon restored when the silver and blue colours of the Titan's T-car came into view, it was if their presence alone carried the weight of two dozen cans of the most powerful energy drink. It was the kind of adrenalin rush that energy drink makers around the globe would kill to get their grubby little paws on.

As the T-car came to a stop, all of the inactive Fire Fighters suddenly sprung to life, rushing to and from the building, while the ones who hadn't given up hope doubled their efforts, this was defenatly motivation at its best.

The doors to the T-car slammed open and with them came the bodies of five teens, who, once out, received much applause from the numerous civilians surrounding the thin line of yellow tape that separated them from their heroes, though the teens took no time to pay attention to the applause, as they had a job at hand which required their undivided attention.

Slack rushed towards a fireman: Captain Hedges, the leader of the certain unit of firefighters who were tasked with putting out this fire. Hedges was a somewhat shy and nervous man who the team had met a week earlier when they were investigating a series of seemingly random arsons which he'd decided required their undivided attention. Hedges raised his helmet slightly, exposing his ash covered face to the team as they approached him.

"Thank God you made it, we were startin' to get worried" Hedges said worriedly as Slack approached him.

"Well…" She asked in a timid voice, the man paused and took a minute to look back at the building before turning back to Slack.

"Looks like a typical arson, someone upstairs must have dropped a cigarette on the floor or somethin', either way the whole top floor's a blaze, I'd be surprised if anyone's still alive up there…we managed to get everyone else out of the building, everyone except for the residents on the top two floors…poor bastards" Hedges said in a solemn tone.

"And you want us to save them?" Red asked in an irritated tone, it wasn't that he wasn't up for saving people, not at all, but the fact that since the Titans showed up in Hallow City, everyone seemed to suddenly come down with a case of severe laziness and expected them to do their jobs for them.

"We'd do it ourselves, but that fire…it's just too big for our people, and our ladders can only reach so far up" Hedges said scratching the back of his neck.

"We're not death proof Captain" Red said, the man stared solemnly at his thick black boots for a second before looking up at Red, an angered look in his eyes. Slack, who'd been monitoring the conversation, ready to save Red from public embarrassment, found this moment to be the perfect one to interfere.

"We can handle it Captain" Slack said, cutting into the conversation, preventing Red from beginning an argument with the man, like he'd done with countless other's in Hallow City. Red turned to her and gave her a confused look which she countered with an optimistic smile, Red frowned, lightly and gave her a slight smile, which, coming from Red, meant a lot to her.

"Alright team, Captain Hedges was nice enough to let us clean up his mess, so let's not make the same mistake he made" Slack said addressing her team, who nodded their heads before rushing towards the building.

As the team entered the burnt and tarnished waiting room of the building, they were met with several yellow uniform clad firemen who informed the team that the first seven floors of the building had been secured, leaving only the eight and ninth floor to be cleared out by the Titans.

The team rushed up the stairwell that led to the floor, stopping every now and then to dodge, and, with Blizkid's help, put out a pile of flaming wreckage and debris, finally, as the team reached the eight floor Slack, followed by the remainder of her team, stopped abruptly and turned to face her team.

"Since there are two floors we should break up into two groups" She said, Red nodded his head and slapped a hand on Lightlad's shoulder, who turned to face him a look of discomfort on his face, which Red quickly rebuffed with a wild, reckless look.

"Me an' Light-bulb will take the upper floor" he said, Lightlad cursed silently under his breath, rolled his eyes and nodded his head, he had little say in the matter, and it wasn't like arguing did much but waste words on his part, but oh well, life went on.

"Then me, Blizkid and Tag have this floor" she said with a smile which Red returned, Lightlad turned to Blizkid who simply shrugged his shoulders before entering through the large wooden door that led to the inside of the apartment floor, followed soon after by Tag and Slack, leaving the two heroes alone in the stairwell.

"What's with you two?" Lightlad asked as he followed after Red who'd begun his assent up the remainder of the stairs, Red turned to him for a slight second before quickly turning back.

"What do you mean?" Red asked as he continued up the stairs, making sure to avoid the areas that had been destroyed by falling debris.

"I mean you and Slack, you seem….close" he said, Red paused for a slight second, slowly turned to Lightlad and frowned at him.

"What are you getting at?" he asked, Lightlad cracked a soft smile and took several steps up the stairs, narrowly avoiding a large hole in the stairs that had been burnt through.

"Nothing…just curious" he said in a seedy tone, Red's frown increased as he took the remainder of the steps up the stairwell, stopping before a solid wooden door.

"Well, be curious later, we've got a job to do" Red said as Lightlad reached the door. Placing a hand on the door, Lightlad gave the door rough push, which, much to his speculation, did nothing.

"Allow me" Red said, placing his right hand on Lightlad's shoulder and moving him out of the doorway. Lightlad rolled his eyes as Red curled his fingers into a fist, Red had a large flair for the overdramatic, but, then again, he did appreciate it at times...but unfortuantly, this wasn't one of them.

Red wound his fist behind his back for a slight second before launching it forwards, slamming his fist into the wooden door with enough force to burst the door free of it's hinges, sending it quaking to the floor with enough force to shake the room feircly.

The inside, much like the outside of the building led it to believe, was a mix of ash and flaming wreckage, with only a narrow path of ash covered floor leading through the hallway, Hedges was right, it would be a miracle if anyone was still left alive.

Slowly the two stalked down the hallway, stopping every now and then to avoid getting too close to the raging flames attached to the walls, or to peer into one of the many open apartments, only to find, much to their horror, charred corpses, the site of which made Lightlad sick to his stomach, he'd never forget it for as long as he'd live, but he'd have to stay strong, at least until the end of the mission, then he could toss his biscuits.

As the duo neared the end of the hallway they heard a low pitched whimper, stunning the two slightly, Lightlad spun around quickly, just in time for him to see a teenaged girl, possibly his age if not slightly younger, wrap her arms around his chest, burying her head in his chest.

Red starred questioningly at Lightlad who gave him the same look he had before slowly, as if unsure if his actions would help, raised his hands to atop her head, patting her head slowly, though in no way patting her the same way he would a dog, more rather 'patting' her the way he would to a brother or sister, with loving affection.

Lightlad looked down at the girl, she looked familiar, very familiar to be exact, everything about her, aside from her black hair, looked exactly like someone he'd once know, actually she looked a lot like Nicole, though this could be debatable.

His thoughts were interrupted as the girl looked up at Lightlad, tears streaming out of her already bloodstained eyes, Lightlad, feeling a tinge of sorrow soar through his body, gently placed her head back on his shoulder.

"They're dead. Mom, Dad, Billy….they're all dead" She whispered in-between sobs, Lightlad, feeling nothing but remorse for the girl, continued to rub his hand through her hair. He felt his eyes began to become moist, and, trying to hide his obvious sorrow for the girl and her current situation, rubbed his palm across his eyes, taking with it the built up tears her story and reaction had helped to create.

To the right of the two, Red stood, his face holding a slight look of sorrow, with a larger look of annoyance, it wasn't like he didn't feel sorry for the girl, because he truly did, it was just that unless they got out of the building soon, they may never at all, and that truly concerned him.

Placing a hand on Lightlad's shoulder, Red lead Lightlad a few steps away from the girl, towards a more 'private' part of the room where he began to silenty whisper to Lightlad, who nodded his head, stared at the girl then gave Red a thumbs up, before he and Red both walked back towards her.

"I hate to rush you, but we've gotta get out of here…I can carry you if you can't walk" he said, the second part softer than the first. The girl shook her head sideways.

"I can walk" She said softly, Lightlad nodded and held out his hand, offering a hand out of the building, the girl accepted it, be it with a hint of nervousness.

"Now the way out is right ove-" Red began to say before he was cut off by a loud cracking sound from above them, all three teens raised their heads to see a large crack begin to form in the roof above their heads, a crack which got wider and wider as it crawled along the roof, before becoming too wide and collapsing, bringing with it a large chunk of flaming rubble which crashed down in-between Red, Lightlad and the girl, separating Lightlad and his 'companion' from the exit.

"Lightlad!" Red shouted as he rushed towards the fire, staying far enough back to avoid getting seriously burned by the flames, because, despite his natural resistance to fire, which he atributed to his otherwise monster like appearance, he was still capable of getting a severe burn, should the fire be hot enough.

"Yeah, we're fine!" Lightlad, who stood on the opposite side of the flaming wreckage shouted at Red. To the right of him the girl stood, practically trembling at the site of the raging flame before her, and who could blame her, from what Lightlad could gather, her family, the ones she'd mentioned only slightly, had perished in the fire, which, in itself would be psychologically taxing.

Lightlad wrapped an arm around her shoulder and curled her into his chest, hugging her affectionately, a move which she hardly seemed to may much mind too.

"It's ok, it's ok, we'll make it out of here, I promise you" he said as he continued to run his hand through her hair, she nodded her head slightly, gently broke off his embrace and grasped his hand, like she'd done before, though this time Lightlad could have sworn she did it in more of a intimate way, gently squeezing his palm, but then again, maybe it was just his imagination.

"What's you're name?" he asked in an attempt to better relate with her, knowing her name might not give him a detailed look at her life, but it would surely help him and hopefully help her. The girl looked up at him again before mumbling "Nikki" softly.

Lightlad smiled but this was short lived as a spark and crackle from the fire erupted, violently bringing him back to earth from his mental escape.

"We'd really better get moving. There isn't an alternate exit here is there?" he asked, Nikki shook he head before slumping to her knees and bursting into tears, burying her head in her hands as she sobbed.

"We're going to die here, just like the rest of them" She said as she wiped away the tears with her wrist, Lightlad, knowing full well that her prediction of their impending doom would be true if he wasn't quick, shook his head, he had to move quickly, he could regret what he was going to do later.

Rushing towards her he leaned down to her level, grappled her by the waist, pulled her up and into a tight embrace before kicking off of his back legs, leaping into the air for a short second before his body came in contact with the window, shattering it instantly.

He shielded her head with his wrists, gripping her head tightly as he did, protecting her from the brunt of the broken glass, which proceeded to slice through his costume and tear into his skin, he gritted his teeth in pain and almost, almost, dropped Nikki, but using the last of his strength managed to continue holding onto her.

As the two fell through the air, he felt Nikki's grip on his back tighten, and, like before, he may have been imagining it, but it seemed like this grip was less of a frightened grip and more of an intimate one.

As Lightlad reached the halfway point between the building and the soft grass below, he ignited his jetpack, one of the not-so-used features of his costume that, at the moment, he couldn't be happier he had installed.

Right as the two would have hit the ground, splattering them instantly, Lightlad shifted his weight to his feet, moving his body into a laying position and allowing them to miss the ground and speed off, moving through the crowds of photographers who snapped hundreds of shots of the duo, before Lightlad once again shifted his weight, moving into an upright position, sending him flying upwards.

"Enjoying the ride?" he asked, she smiled up at him, a smile he noted to be a much more open and joy filled smile than any of the others she'd given him earlier, before curling up in his embrace, in an affectionate and otherwise flirtatious way, which he was both glad and embarrsed to say he was rather enjoying at the moment.

"Very much" she said as she raised her left arm to above his waist, where it had been previously, instead grappling it around his shoulder, moving her body from it's previous state of holding, changing it from a fireman like carry to a more bridal style of carrying, which had the effect of making Lightlad's already blushed face increase.

"Well now Nikki, I'm sorry to say that it's time for me to let you off" he said, Nikki's face fell, slightly, before lighting back up into her, as Lightlad had come to think of it, optomistic and attractive smile.

"Ok" she said lightly, Lightlad smiled at her before decreasing the power of his suit's jetpack, slowly lowering the duo to the floor below them, where a flurry of firemen, reporters and his own team all stood waiting for them.

Lightlad landed on the ground with a soft 'plop', his landing sending several dozen pieces of grass and leaves spiralling every which way, as he de-ignited his jetpack he gently released his grip on Nikki, offering her his hand in a gentleman like fashion as she regained her lost stability.

Nikki continued to straighten herself out as Lightlad watched the approach of the mixture of the reporters, medical workers and the remainder of his team, all of whom had looks of complete shock in their eyes, especially Tag, who he could see, even from the far off distance had a look of worry in her eyes, he smiled at the thought that her look of concern brought on, the idea that she cared enough about him to have that look on her face was a pleasing one to say the least.

As he felt a second blush, this one due to his hidden affection for his team-mate, build up on his face he remembered exactly what he was doing that had caused Tag to have the look of concern she held, and, doing so, he spun around to face Nikki who flashed him her beautiful smile, before reaching both arms up to his neck, pulling him into a deep and passionate kiss, a kiss which shocked the un-expecting Lightlad.

Lightlad's eyes shot open in response to this sudden shock, but he slowly began to revert to his previous stage of comfort as Nikki began to stroke the left side of his face with her hand, even beginning to kiss her back, which only seemed natural for him to do at the moment. All around him photographers snapped dozens, if not hundreds, of photo's of the two, making the odd comment about a snappy headline they could print on the next day's paper, headlines including "Lightlad receives 'special' reward for saving teen" and, the not so flattering "Teen Titan's Lightlad solicits a 'reward' from a teenaged victim".

It wasn't until he saw his team, whose faces all held an intense level of shock, that he realized just what he was doing, and not only that, but just how wrong it was.

Realization came to him in the form of a sharp pain to the stomach, a pain which tore at his innards like a jagged piece of glass, slowly, and painfully, creeping up his stomach, inch by inch.

He'd felt this pain before, many times, it was a stomach problem, some sort of Ulcer, brought on by stress and guilt, a stomach problem he'd been diagnosed as having since the age of six, with it getting worse and worse every year.

As Nikki began stroking the right side of his head with her left finger, he began to feel the pain increase, this was wrong, and he knew it, and there was only one way to stop it. Swallowing roughly, trying to stomach his pain and guilt, he placed both hands on Nikki's shoulders and gave her a gentle shove, a shove which helped to break off the kiss.

Stumbling backwards, not out of the strength in which Lightlad had pushed her, but rather a mixed cause of clumsiness and shock, Nikki stared at Lightlad, her eyes bearing a look of confusion, confusion as to why he'd just pushed her away, she thought for sure he held the same feelings for her that she had for him, it wasn't like he hadn't been flirting with her also, the way he'd saved her, cared for her, if that wasn't a true sign of love, then she didn't know what was.

"Lighty" she said, making the decision to give him a playful nickname, something she'd done in the past to the things she loved, stuffed animals, pets, anything worthy of naming, she'd make sure it had that name. Though she could hardly say he looked happy about being 'named', as his face held a large, un-amused looking, frown.

"Lighty, what's wrong?" She asked, in an innocent, naïve tone, which almost made Lightlad regret what he'd just done, and, had it not been for the guilt caused pain in his stomach, he surely would have.

"First off, it's Light_lad_, not 'lighty', and secondly, I don't like you like that, I'm sorry if you got that impression, but there's someone else, and unfortunately for you, you aren't her" he said rather harshly, not that he was trying to sound harsh at all, but he'd had it with her, the stroking, flirting, he just couldn't take it, it was an all too familiar reminder of what he'd used to have with 'her', what he'd used to have with Nicole.

Nikki looked shocked, to say the least, actually, a better term for the look her face held was broken, she looked broken, emotionally broken that was, her spirits had been shattered, torn, ruined. She'd lost everything today, her parents, her brother, her home, her life, and finally when she was sure Lightlad, her hero, the person she'd focused all of her affection on, the person she thought shared the same feelings she did, was as in love with her as she was him she'd learned that not only did he dislike her, but that there was someone else, someone to take the love that belonged to her. No, this was too much, way too much for her to handle in one day.

Feeling tears beginning to burn through her pupils she closed her eyes, to try and hide the tears from him, before quickly spinning on her heel and rushing away from him, running as far away from him as she could get, she was embarrassed, embarrassed that she'd made such a fool of herself like that.

Realizing the severity of his actions, the pain in Lightlad's stomach only doubled instead of dissipating, like he'd planned it to have, the guilt of the damage he'd caused to both Tag and Nikki was too much for him to handle and the pain didn't help, well, he may not be able to do much about Tag at the moment, but he could try and fix what he'd said to Nikki.

As he began to rush through the slight path Nikki had formed through the photographers, shoving several of them away violently as he did, he wasn't going to let anything stop him from making amends, nothing.

Finally as he cleared the league of reporters he found himself face-to-face with the remainder of his team-mates, the remainder with the noticeable absence of Tag, which didn't help to quell Lightlad's stomach problem, he noticed something, with the absence of Slack, both Red and Blizkid's faces held looks of anger, with Blizkid's being a more serious look than Red's, which didn't require any explanation as Blizkid and Tag shared a 'brother/sister' relationship, a relationship which, at the moment, Lightlad was extremely jealous of.

"Look, you can be mad at me all you'd like, but I've really gotta go find Nikki" he said walking past the group, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by Blizkid, who blocked his path with his very body.

"Why, so you can make Tag feel worse!" He said aggressively, Lightlad swallowed back his guilt, had she really taken it that badly, taken his 'fling' with Nikki roughly enough that her 'brother' had to stand up for her. It made him guilty to see Blizkid, a kid who could barely speak three words without blushing or shying away, speak so many and so harshly.

"I've gotta make this right, so if you could just move-" he said moving forwards, trying to break a path between him and Blizkid, but Blizkid wasn't having it, instead he took a side step, which put him directly in front of Lightlad, this wasn't going to be easy.

"You hurt her…and running to 'Nikki' isn't going to change that" Blizkid said in a rather aggressive tone, and would have continued too had it not been for Red's sudden interruption, placing his hand on Blizkid's shoulder in order to stop him from saying any more.

"Bliz, why don't you go wait in the car?" he asked, using the nickname that he'd given Blizkid for this very kind of occasion, Blizkid sighed, glared angrily at Lightlad and began to walk towards the T-car, followed soon after by Red, Red only following after to make sure Blizkid was alright, leaving behind both Lightlad and Slack.

"I know this is difficult for you Lightlad and I can't say that I know what you're going through, but I do know that you'll be able to make things right" She said with a soft smile, her voice and appearance giving away the sorrow she'd hidden inside herself. Lightlad felt a sense of relief rush through his body, it wasn't much, but compared to the sharp knife that was his guilty conscious it was relief none the less.

As Slack began to walk back to the car Lightlad saw that Nikki was nowhere in sight, this wasn't good, and it didn't help to cure his stomach problems, not one bit, instead making them much, much, worse. Not only had he hurt Tag, the one person on the team who, for the life of him, he'd never try to hurt, the one person who he cared about more than anyone else in the world, but he'd also hurt Nikki, the person whose heart he had stolen and, unfortunately, broken, and now with her nowhere in the vicinity, he'd never get the chance to apologize to her.

Today just wasn't his day.

* * *

_Sam smiled to himself as he lead the most beautiful girl in the world, who at the moment was blindfolded and blindly followed his words alone, by her left palm, gently trailing her through various forms of shrubbery. _

The first part of their date, the dinner, had gone, in his opinion, extremely well, the staff at the restaurant had been a little reluctant to let Nicole in at first, assuming that Sam had been the one responsible for her bruising, but, with Sam's clever wording and Nicole's 'crying' act, in which she faked a teary tantrum in order to get in, the two had not only gotten in, but had also been treated to a free meal.

After their meal the two walked, hand-in-hand, to the Saint Angle's movie theatre, one of Jump City's oldest and, considerably, most romantic movie theatres, which stood only a block away from the restaurant.

_As they arrived, they found, much to the two's delight, that they were among the only inhabitants, with only an elderly gentleman and a twosome of older, though nowhere near the age of the first patron, women. _

The movie was laughably bad, bad acting, bad writing, bad special effects, the laundry list of 'bad' went on and on, but it wasn't the movie he was focused on. Continuously he'd take his eyes off the screen and divert them to the real piece of art in the room, Nicole, who wore a smile throughout the entire film, often turning to Sam, as he did to her, and flashing him a gentle smile before turning back to the screen.

_After the movie, which, Sam was slightly embarrassed to say he'd taken her too, he'd have to punch his friend later for suggesting it, the two had taken a nice stroll, again with their hands gently grasping the others, through downtown Jump City. _

It was odd to Sam, he'd never noticed how truly beautiful Jump City was before this day. The tree's were greener than he'd remembered them ever being, the rose's that grew in the dozens of small pot's across the street, redder than he'd remembered, even the Titan's tower, which was un miss able to anyone who looked upwards from where he stood, looked more colourful than it had ever looked in the past, and all of this he had to thank Nicole for.

Soon after their stroll through downtown Jump City, the two had come to Sam's final destination, Jump City Park, which, like everything else in Jump City, seemed more lively today than anytime in the past.

Once they'd stepped inside he'd asked Nicole to cover her eyes with a blindfold he'd had in his pocket since earlier that day, a request which at first she'd found odd, but after his reassurance she complied too.

And that's where he stood now, leading her by her hand to the twosome's destination, which, according to his memory, was right past the next bust.

As he passed the bush, still holding onto Nicole's hand, he smiled at the sight before him, turned to Nicole and gently removed her blindfold, before staring into her soft brown eyes, which held an intensly stunned look to them, an obvious biproduct of the view in front of her eyes, her face carried a completly shocked look to it, something which Sam had been expecting.

Before the two teens stood a large, crystal glowing lake, where ducks and geese gently floated atop it's cool waters, the sun gleaming off of it, giving it the perfect 'mood' effect, it was an awe-inspiring sight that artists would go their whole lives to find, and here it was, in front of the two, and neither could be more happy.

"Well, do you like it?" he asked in, what Nicole had come to call, his 'nervous' and 'unsure' tone of voice, a voice that she had to admit, she found cute and utterly adorable.

She turned to him, placed a hand on his cheek and gently pulled him into a kiss, which he returned with a great level of enthusiasm, had she not been in this position she would have smiled, he was warming up, becoming less nervous and she couldn't be more happy for him.

She broke off the kiss gently before laying her head on his shoulder, moving her arms up his back and hugging him tightly, Sam smiled, put one arm around her back and used the other to slowly stroke her hair, which, she had to admit, she was beginning to not only get used to, but starting to like.

"_I love you Sam" she whispered into his ear as he continued to run his hand through her hair. For a short second Sam was in a state of complete shock, no one had ever said that to him before, not one of his previous girl friends, not even his own parents, no one, no one in his entire life had ever uttered the phrase "I love you" to him, he was overjoyed, actually that was an understatement, he was so overcome with emotions, all positive, that he couldn't think of a word to describe what he felt…other than love, he was in love and he couldn't be more happy. Staring down at the beautiful brunette he held in his arms he could only think of one sentence, one sentence and one sentence only that he needed to tell her, one sentence to express himself, one sentence to make her his. _

_"I love you too, Nicole" he said as she raised her head towards his, staring longingly into his eyes. Leaning her head forwards, she pressed her lips up against his, kissing him again before leaning back into his shoulder._

_Sam couldn't believe it, he was in love, for the first time in his entire life he was in love, never had he felt such strong emotions for another individual, never, this feeling of soulfulness, the feeling of care, concern, the feeling that someone else cared for him was the greatest feeling he'd felt in all his life, and he liked it, he liked it a lot.__

* * *

_  
Several hours had passed since the Titans had rescued more than twelve survivors from the 'unstoppable fire', a fire which they'd also happened to put out during their time saving those deemed "D.O.A." or "Dead on Arrival" by the firefighters.

Currently, Dennis Hoffman sat in his leather armchair, a solid brown cigar hanging out the tip of his mouth, this was, what the people of Hallow City had come to call his "Iconic Pose" as nearly every photograph, portrait or artistic rendition of him captured the exact pose he was in at the moment.

He was in a deep state of concentrated thought at the moment, much like a man in his very position would be, his thoughts all revolving around the Titans, and all the misfortune they'd brought with them.

Up until the Titans had come to Hallow City he'd ruled supreme, free to do what he wanted, when he wanted, so long as he paid the police and news reporters "Hush Money", but now that the Titans were here things were different, the police were more motivated, and would waste no time to bring him down given the right evidence, and the media, which he'd once controlled with an iron fist, was just as brutal, if not more so, than himself, as he'd learned the hard way.

His company's stock had dropped significantly in the past three weeks, a by-product of the media's coverage of his company, which, along with insider info from an unknown 'mole' inside his company, had been enough to make the public weary of his status, which he regretted dreadfully, should he be able to find this 'mole' in his company, he'd make sure he, or she, would suffer as much as he had.

Suddenly, a slight 'beeping' sound, coming from the small, gold tinted telephone that sat atop his newly purchased marble topped desk, interrupted his thoughts, dragging him from his train of thoughts to real life.

Raising his forefinger, he pressed it down gently on the button labelled "Talk", which caused the telephone to cackle lightly before the timid, stutter filled voice of Aaron Lloyd began to speak.

"Mr. Hoffman, sir, you're Three O'clock is here" Aaron Lloyd said through the intercom system attached the telephone, Hoffman smiled, this might just be the thing he needed to cheer himself up.

"Send her in Lloyd" He said, harshly into the device, again he was met with a slight cackle of static, before the line went dead.

Dead ahead of him, the massive oak doors that lead in and out of his office slowly began to open, bringing with them the shadowed figure of a female.

Hoffman's face light up with a devilish smile, which spread across his face, growing from cheek-to-cheek, as the figure finished entering into the room, revealing her to be none other than the previously heartbroken Nikki.

Her face held a swollen frown as well as moist cheeks, a sign that previous to this encounter she'd been crying, something which Hoffman felt a tinge of sorrow over, though he made it brutally unapparent.

"Mrs. Night, I presume?" he asked as Nikki slowly began to approach his desk, She nodded her head, "Yes" in response and Hoffman smiled, he'd seen what had happened on the news, and if what they said was really true, he might be able to have some fun with this one.

"Please, Mrs. Night, have a seat. Can I get you anything, a drink perhaps?" he asked, offering her his hand in a gentleman like fashion as she took her seat. She stared up at him, her eyes a mix of sorrow and hurt, giving him a look that, for a slight second, Hoffman was guilty to say made him feel 'bad'.

"…..a glass of water" she said in a tiny voice, it being the only thing she could muster up, but who could blame her? After the horrors she'd lain witness to in just under an hours time, watching her family, freinds, house...everything she held dear dissapear behind a wall of flame. Even Hoffman could sympathize with her, he was after all, only human.

"Right away. Mr. Beest-" he said, turning his head to the corner of the room where Bruno Beest stood, Bruno nodded his head and walked towards the Mini-bar in opposite his body.

"Now then, what can I do for you today Mrs. Night?" Hoffman asked, leaning both elbows onto his desk.

Nikki glanced up at Hoffman, her eyes still holding the same look of sorrow and hate they had before, she swallowed, lightly, before uttering one single word, a word which brought a smile to Hoffman's lips, a word which spoke more than any sentence ever could.

"Revenge" she said in a cold, dry, tone of voice.

Hoffman sat back in his chair, grabbed the remainder of his cigar out of the ashtray and placed it in his mouth.

"Now you're speaking my language" he said in an gleeful tone of voice as he took a long drag from the cigar, blowing the smoke out directly at the spot on the window where the T-tower was visible.

"Of course you know, in order for me to provide the means for you to re-enact you're vengeance against the Titans, who I am to assume are those responsible for the revenge you seek, I'll need you to sign a few papers first, nothing too serious, just a couple of papers saying that you wanted the powers I'm ready to give you. You will sign them won't you?" Hoffman asked with an almost giddy tone.

"Mr. Hoffman, I'll sign any papers in order to get my revenge on Lightlad" She said with a large amount of malice. Hoffman's smile only widened as he snapped his fingers at Beest, who nodded his head and walked over to a small, gold tinted filing cabinet.

"Of course you will Mrs. Night" He said as Beest arrived next to Nikki, his right hand clutching a stack of yellow papers, which he lay on the table in front of her.

"Sign here" he said in his gruff, hoarse voice, as he pointed at a small, yellow, dotted line, Nikki smiled as Hoffman gently handed her a pen. She couldn't believe how nice Hoffman was, the media made him out to be such an evil, soulless villain, but here he was a caring, concerning, gentleman, not at all like the Titans, the Titans, the heroes who couldn't save her family, the heroes who couldn't save her neighbours, the heroes who couldn't even save her, they were the villains, not Hoffman, she could see it, and now all she needed to do was show the world it.

As she finished scribbling her name on the dotted line, Hoffman smiled and gently pulled the sheets away from her, placing them in one of his drawers, which he proceeded to lock with a key he'd hidden away in the breast pocket of his undershirt.

"Now, if you'd be so kind as to follow my associate Mr. Hoxie, he'll take you down to the labs, where you'll be taken care of properly. After you're done with you're 'operation', I'd like for you to come back here, I have a little job for you that I'm sure you'll be more than overjoyed to hear about. And remember Mrs. Night, no matter what happens out there, you'll always have me as an ally" Hoffman said with a kind and gentle smile. She too smiled and walked towards the door, where the man, who she assumed to be this "Mr. Hoxie" stood.

"Take good care of her Dexter" Hoffman said to Hoxie, who only smiled and nodded his head before leading Nikki out of the door and walking her down the hall, leading her towards the elevators.

As the massive oak doors to the room shut quietly behind the two Beest turned to Hoffman, whose face held an gleefully equipped smile, which with all his past experiences working with Hoffman, Beest knew to mean he was planning something, something big to be exact.

* * *

Back at the Titans Tower, the group had shifted, pretty much, back into their regular daily routines. Sev and Blizkid continued their video game tournament, which they'd been having since earlier that morning. Slack had taken the remainder of the day off in order to fill out paper work, which, once signed, would help the families of those lost in the day's earlier events, if there was one thing Slack was, it was selfless, she thought more about others than herself, a fact that her team-mates respected as much as her leadership qualities.

Red had spent his time since returning from the mission, training in the weight room, having taken partial responsibility for the day's actions which had led up the confrontation between Lightlad and Nikki, he believed that, had he only acted faster, he could have prevented the whole thing, of course this was an untrue statement, nothing could have been done to prevent what had happened, but Red liked to believe that he could better himself, it gave him motivation, it gave him purpose.

As for the remaining members of the team, things differed greatly for them, Tag had exited the day's earlier adventure earlier than her team-mates, feeling great shock, and hurt, from what she'd seen of Lightlad and Nikki's 'romp' and had immediately transported herself away from him, locking herself in her room back at the tower, were she had remained for the remainder of the day. And Lightlad, soon after he'd come home from the mission he immediately attempted to apologize to Tag, only to receive no answer, but lucky for Tag, Lightlad was as persistent as he was stupid, and had spent the last hour and a half attempting to get her to speak so little as one word to him.

"Tag…come on, I'm sorry I hurt you're feelings, I didn't mean too. I just wanna talk to you…..please" he said as he gently beat his hand against the door, before loosing strength, having expended it earlier that day, and falling against the door, his body sliding down onto the floor in the process.

Suddenly, and much to Lightlad's delight, the silver metal door slid open, opening to reveal the figure of his beautiful angle: Tag, who stood with her arms crossed over her chest in an annoyed and angered expression, and he couldn't blame her, if he was in her position he wouldn't have even opened the door.

"Yes?" she asked in a semi-irritated tone, Lightlad got to his feet and gave her, what he liked to call, a set of his 'puppy eyes', which he was shocked to find she found resistible.

"Tag, I'm sorry I hurt you, really I am, what happened between me and Nikki….shouldn't have happened, and I know I'm to blame but you have to believe me when I say I wished it hadn't happened, I would never hurt you're feelings on purpose, or at all, I swear it" he said, waiting for Tag's response, which he knew in his heart to be a 'no'.

Tag stared at him, she knew she couldn't stay mad at him, no matter how hard she tried, and he was really trying to make amends, which she found sweet, she smiled and placed both hands on his shoulders, pulling him into a hug.

"I really am sorry" he said as he placed his hands on her back, pulling her tighter into his embrace, which, from the looks of things, Tag didn't particularity seem to mind._  
_  
Just as Tag was ready to tell him she forgave him, the two were interrupted by the mechanical "Bree-Bree-Bree" drone of the alarm system, twice in one day, this was an all time high for the number of times trouble had managed to ruin important events in his life, but oh well, life went on.

Breaking off the hug, and staring somewhat shyly at the other, both Tag and Lightlad rushed towards the stairwell located at the end of the hall, practically bumping into one another as they did.

Finally when they reached it, Lightlad, fancying himself a gentleman, held the door open for Tag, yet another sign that he was still seeking her forgiveness, she smiled sweetly at him, a smile that, had Tag been paying closer attention, would have noticed that it had made Lightlad turn a shade of red comparable to the colour of Red's skin, before rushing up the stairs, followed soon after by himself.

As the two made it to the lounge they burst through the door, again clumsily, only this time they truly did bump into the other, with Lightlad tripping over Tag's left leg, launching her to the floor softly and sending him spiralling through the air before landing, roughly, on his head.

"Well, I'm glad to see you two made up" Slack said with a smile as the two got to their feet, blushes attached to each of one the two's faces as they did. Behind Slack, both Red and Blizkid stood, Blizkid's face held a nervous smile, nervous due to the fact that he'd treated Lightlad terribly all afternoon and now felt terribly upset about it.

"Uh, Lightlad…..I'm sorry for being such a jerk earlier. Do you forgive me?" Blizkid asked, scratching at his neck feverously, Lightlad smiled and rubbed a hand roughly through his hair, perhaps a little too roughly as it seemed to bother Blizkid.

"Well, if you feel that badly, I guess the only way to make it up to me would be….to do my laundry for the next two weeks" he said sarcastically, Blizkid frowned and pushed Lightlad's hand out of his hair, Lightlad smirked, shrugged his shoulders and turned to Slack.

"So, what do we have?" He asked casually, Slack, in response to his statement, turned to Sev who smiled, draped his hands over the black keyboard of his computer and began to strike the keys lightly, bringing up a small screen on the largest of the monitors.

"Man, you guys won't believe this…" Sev said with a smile as he tilted the monitor towards the team, all of whom looked shocked as they glared at the monitor.

The video feed was a grainy, black and white view, which, according to the clock in the lower left hand corner of the screen, was from seven minutes prior, appeared to be shot by a home camera, which, apparently had been dropped carelessly in the middle of the street.

On the screen, standing in the middle of the street was none other than Nikki, who stood before half a dozen black and white police cars, each with a pair of police officers standing outside, their guns aimed directly at her. Nikki, unlike earlier, was dressed-instead of the 'civilian' clothing she'd worn previously-in clothing, or rather, a costume, which, much to the shock of Lightlad, was somewhat revealing.

The costume was made of a mixture of long, loose, black pants, which held a flame like pattern from the ankle to well above the knee as well as looked to be made of the typical superhero styled 'spandex', her costume also held a flowing black sleeveless robe, the hood of which covered her head almost entirely, leaving only the bottom of her head, including her mouth and jaw visible. The last accessory to the costume was a white 'shirt' which covered her chest but left an extremely large amount of open space between her stomach and chest.

"She, uh, didn't look like that earlier today, did she?" Sev asked as he stared, almost obsessively at the image of 'Super-Nikki", Lightlad rolled his eyes at Sev's testosterone induced statement.

"Yeah and she didn't have those powers either" Red said as the onscreen version of 'Super-Nikki' developed a small, round ball in her hand, a ball which from the look of it, appeared to be made of pure flames, though, due to the mix of the lack of colour from the video feed and the grainy picture it was hard to tell. All eyes turned to Lightlad who stood with an equally confused look on his face.

"Hey, I know as much as you do on this one" He said in his defence. Suddenly the onscreen image of Nikki drew her arm behind her back, and, with the force, strength and precision of a major league baseball pitcher, hurled the 'ball' directly at one of the many police cars standing before her.

The ball, upon impact with the car, burned a deep hole in the hood of the car before a slight white glow began to envelop the car, causing it to suddenly explode into a massive ball of flame, a ball of flame which launched the car into the air a good twenty feet, before it came crashing back down on the paved road.

"Wow" came the shared expression from the team, who watched in both horror and amazement as 'Super-Nikki' continued to throw these 'balls' at the police cars that surrounded her, each 'ball' that touched a police car created the same explosive result that the first one had. The video was suddenly interrupted when one of the remaining police cars, or rather the flaming wreckage of one of the police cars crashed down upon the camera, crushing it and completely obliterating the camera feed.

"Yowzers, I wouldn't wanna run afoul of her anytime soon….and lucky for me I won't have to. Thakfully there are perps to having a desk job" Sev said as he exited the program in which he, along with his team-mates, had used to watch the carnage happen.

"Yeah, it's a damn shame" Red asked sarcastically, Sev only smiled and waved his palms at Red, whishing him away.

"Don't you have a city to save?" Sev said, instigating the argument the two were having by waving his hands, in a 'shooing' manner, Red grinned, turned to Slack, who gave him a soft look, and frowned.

"I guess so" He said as he followed after the team, who'd taken the time to get several steps ahead of him, and all now stood, neatly, before the elevator doors.

"Ta-Ta-For-Now." Sev said as he waved his hand, mockingly, at Red, who only glared angrily at him before entering into the now opened elevator along with the remainder of his team.

As the elevator doors closed shut Sev spun his chair back towards the computer, turned the monitor to face him, and draped his fingers over the keys before tapping them down on the black coated buttons, lightly.

"Now Slack, I don't wanna sound like I'm rushing you or anything, but from the looks of things, Scythes is preparing to call in the sharp shooters to take out our little friend. I'd get there as fast as I could if I were you" He said, speaking into one of the computers internal microphones.

"Can you try to stall him?" Slack asked as she pressed a finger to her own earpiece, there was a slight mechanical crackling before Sev's voice broke through.

"I'll see what I can do" Sev said as he slammed his fingers against the keyboard, prompting half a dozen programs to be brought up on screen, he smiled as he dragged the mouse over the first one.

"Let's get cracking"

* * *

Sergeant Scythes stood behind a large, bullet, and hopefully, giant flaming orb, proof wall, a wall which blocked off the four blocks around the area where Nikki, as they'd come to learn her name, stood, directly in the middle of the street, paitently awaiting, what the others assumed to be, the Titans. 

He stood with a stern look on his face, he didn't like what was and had happened, he'd just watched as a teenaged girl, at least thirty years younger than himself, blew apart an entire convoy of police cars, leaving six of his men injured, and one almost fatally.

And, even now as SWAT sharpshooters, the best of the best when it came to removing terror inducing insurgents such as the one standing, peacefully, behind the barriers, lay across the rooftops, ready to prevent this girl from causing any more damage to the city, he was being held back, held back all because the Titans, who in the past three weeks, he'd come to rather enjoy, believed that saving someone was their top priority, even when the girl they were willing to save was a criminal. Some things he'd just never understand.

His frown only increased as he saw the approach of a white and silver tinted sports utility vehicle, the T-car as it was known. He sighed, why did they always have to involve themselves in his affairs, it wasn't like he wasn't already up to his neck in the paperwork from the team's last heroic act, saving a kitten from a tree, and this...this, even if it ended well, would require a hell of a lot of his time. Oh well, at least he had a good use for the dozens of pens he had laying around his house.

As the Titans piled out of the car, for the second time in one day, Scythes approached them, lending out his hand to Slack, who stood ready to shake it.

"Nice to see you again Sergeant" she said as she shook his hand, he smiled, lightly and peered past her shoulder for a slight second, before turning back to her.

"Agreed. Though under different circumstances would have been nicer" He added in, Slack nodded her head in agreement before following after Scythes, who'd taken the lead, leading the team, who followed after Slack, towards a where a small black chalkboard stood, shielded by a green tarp and surrounded by several, black clad SWAT members.

"Now, we have snipers aligned across the rooftops, should one of them get the chance…." A black haired man, dressed in the same uniform as the other SWAT members, minus the tactical helmet, said, as he pointed his finger towards the chalk board where crudely drawn soldiers, who all held cartoony guns, were shown aiming their 'weapons'-which in reality looked more like water guns than the tactical weapons they were truly given-at an extremely poorly, and over exaggerated-in inappropriate places-picture of what appeared to be Nikki.

"Ah, Sergeant, I was just showing my team here our next course of action" the man said as he removed his finger from the board.

"Nice pictures, Rhodes. My niece can draw better than that, and she's hardly a year old" Scythes said in a rather unserious tone of voice, addressing the man by name.

"Well, I wasn't all too good at art in High School, guess that's why I became a cop" Rhodes said.

"-SWAT" one of the SWAT members corrected him, Rhodes frowned and slapped his palm against the man's helmet, generating a soft 'clunk' noise.

"Whatever-" Rhodes huffed angrily, before turning his attention towards the Titans. "-so, uh, wow. You guys are the Titans" He said in astonishment, as most officials who first met the Titans did. Lightlad smirked.

"Thanks for noticing" he said in a sarcastic tone of voice, Rhodes' frown only increased as he cleared his throat.

"Obviously the media makes you out to be a lot nicer than you are up close and personal. But, uh, yeah, well, I guess since you're here we can just pack up and call it a day, huh? I mean you're gonna take good care of that fireball throwing, cop car exploding, sniper deploying, sorry ass, good for nothing piece of Jailbait, huh?" He blurted out in a rapid paced tone of voice, a tone which implanted the idea that he was both an on the edge and extremely nervous individual, into the Titans heads.

Suddenly all eyes, even those of his own SWAT members, whose were hidden behind their thick goggles and helmets, turned towards him. Rhodes swallowed lightly and nodded his head to himself.

"I'm rambling aren't I? I do that when I'm stressed out, I mean I got bills piling up, child support due, all sorts of problems just crawling out of every orifice….but you don't wanna hear that" he said waving his hand in front of his face and slammed his palms down gently on one of the several tables surrounding him.

"Well, avoiding any more public humiliation on your part, why don't you just tell us you're plan?" Scythes said in a stern tone of voice. Rhodes nodded his head vigourosuly before pointing his finger back on the chalkboard.

"Ok, well. We've got snipers lined up, here, here, here and here" He said, pointing his finger at a spot on the chalkboard where a foursome of poorly drawn stick men brandished comically oversized guns in their thin arms, all four of the figures sat atop an array of equally, if not more so, poorly drawn buildings which equated to a square shaped image.

"Now, our little super powered, flaming orb tossing friend is here and you're here-" He said, continuing to point at the images on the chalkboard "-so, if you come in here-" he said aiming his finger in a small opening at an image of a wall, which was supposed to represent the wall surrounding the four streets that had been blocked off by the SWAT team "-then, it'll give you a good vantage point and my men a limb to lean on when it comes to aiming at her, not that they'll shoot without permission. Now before you freak out, you should know that this isn't a Waco, shoot all the religious fanatics, leave no man, woman or child alive sorta siege you know, I mean we're not gonna pour boxes of bullets into her if she makes a false move, we take our time here, we're not a bunch of crazy, trigger fingered Texans…no offence Sergeant"

Scythes huffed aggressively, a move which the others had come to consider Scythes own version of a retort to anything Rhodes said that crossed the line.

"Any way, like I was saying, those sharp shooters are armed with tranquilizer darts, not real bullets, that could have really led to a messy situation. Now, once you've taken her down, you know, gotten her in cuffs-and I don't mean the kind of cuffs you'd get a five hundred dollar stripper to use-" he added in, in a cheeky tone of voice, "-then give an "O.K." sign with you're fingers and a group'll be ready to make the arrest, but, should things not go according to plan, just give one of my men a 'thumbs' up' and they'll hit her with a dart, nothing too big, not even a lethal dose, I'd say about enough to take out an elephant, but don't worry, she won't die….at least hopefully not".

"Well, on that reassuring note, how'd you all like to go an' save the day?" Scythes asked as he led the heroes towards where the real life, and almost as small as on the chalkboard, hole in the wall stood.

"Ladies first" Red said in a half flirtatious-half serous tone as he offered Slack his hand, leading her through the wall, she smiled whole heartedly at him as she went through, a smile which garnered some "I thought so" attention from Lightlad.

"Who's next?" he asked.

* * *

The inside of the walled out area was, truly, nothing short of a breathtaking view for any one spawning from the pyromaniac community, charred cars lay scattered along the street, spewed all along the road with little to no pattern to their destroyed metal carcasses. 

Large burn marks stained the sides of the buildings, presumably coming from the flaming cars which had collided with them, and, along with the severe burn marks found on the road, several dozen pieces of melted city objects, ranging from garbage cans to light posts, drooped down towards the ground, giving the area an extremely artistic, but at the same time tragic, look, which could only be viewed once in a lifetime.

As the team slowly finished arriving through the wall they saw, much to their combined shock, that, standing in the middle of the squared off city limits, stood Nikki, her face aimed directly at them, though, if she saw them was questionable, as she didn't seem to show any signs of fear or anger.

"I have twenty dollars that says Hoffman's got something to do with her spiffy new attire, not to mention those snazzy powers" Sev's said, his voice cutting through Lightlad's ear-peace. Lightlad smirked in response and quietly, along with the rest of the team slowly began to emerge through the mess of burned cars.

Lightlad stumbled through the melted maze awkwardly, he stopped after every step he took in order to check on one of the factors included in this awkward square he was in, every first step he'd stop to make sure Tag was safe, then he'd step again, stop to make sure Nikki didn't see them, take a third step, and stop again to make sure the snipers hadn't shot Nikki without their consent.

Lightlad continued his form of 'step-look-step-look' as he trailed after the remainder of his team, and despite the time it took in order to insure that his system worked, it seemed to be working, at least to him.

Taking several more steps he was sure that this time, unlike every other time in the past, that, maybe this time, they'd be able to talk their way out of a situation, well, so long as they stayed stealthy as a ninja this plan might just work, as he lowered his foot he was horrified to feel his foot press down, not on the thick char covered ground, but instead a soft, curved, pane of glass, which upon putting pressure on, produced a loud, and definitely noticeable, cracking sound, which alerted not only his team's attention and the sniper rifle carrying SWAT members along the roof, but also, much to his and the others disappointment and anger, the attention of 'Super-Nikki', who literally leapt to her feet in retort.

"You!" She shouted, aiming not only her comment, but also a hand, with a glowing orb beginning to form on the palms inside, at Lightlad.

"Heh-heh-heh" Lightlad said, giving her his best cheeky laugh, though none of those observing him found their current situation the least bit laughable.

"Nice job Lightbulb, I swear if we make it out of here I'll make sure you can never make this mistake again" Red shouted angrily as Nikki launched the ball of flame she'd held in her hand at Lightlad.

"Lightlad!" Tag shouted as the ball drew closer towards his body, she rushed out from her hiding place, tucked away beside Blizkid behind one of the burnt police cars, and leapt at Lightlad, grappling him roughly and tackling him to the floor, the ball narrowly avoiding the two and instead flying towards the wall, denting it deeply and causing an intense ripple to form alongside of the wall.

"That was close" Lightlad said quietly as he looked at Tag who had a relieved look on her face. It might have just been his imagination but Tag seemed to be squeezing him extremely tightly, well, tight enough for her to cause more damage than the fireball would have, though he knew, if she was holding on as tightly as he'd imagined, then it must have meant she cared for him, or, cared enough to risk her own life saving him.

"Titans, Split up!" Slack shouted, barking her orders to her team-mates.

"You don't have to tell me twice" Red said as he emerged from his hiding place, which, like Blizkid and Tag's, had been behind one of the nearly a dozen destroyed police car.

Placing a hand on the car's roof, Red shifted the weight to his arm and kicked off the ground, using his intense strength to launch himself into the air at least ten feet, his body hurtling towards Nikki's 'throne'.

"Oh, so the dog wants to play a little game" Nikki said with a smile as she charged a twosome of the flaming orbs in her hands. As Red neared closer to her she quickly shot both her arms forwards, launching both of the orbs directly at the unsuspecting Red's chest.

"You gotta be freakin' kidding me!" Red said angrily as the orbs drew ever closer to his chest, he closed his eyes as he felt the first of the two orbs burn deeply into his chest, followed soon after by the second, and even sooner than that, the two's ensuing explosion, which launched Red's body through the air violently before it came crashing down onto the hard cement road, his body skidding along the road with an intense speed before finally stopping when he slammed into the thick barrier wall, the force creating an extremely large dent in it's side.

"Red!" Slack shouted in a horrified tone, as she abandoned her hiding place, hidden behind a melted bus stop, and rushed over to where her team-mate and, more importantly, best friend, lay, his unconscious body digging deeply into the wall, denting it severely.

Nikki watched as Slack reached Red's body, practically leaping down onto her knees and cupping his head in her hand, instantly checking for any injures he'd sustained. Nikki smiled a deep, cruel smile, raised her arms towards Slack's body, and fired two more orbs, her target completely unaware of the oncoming danger. Had she known beating the Titans was going to be this easy she wouldn't have had to have caused this little 'distraction' which had caused her to wait a good half an hour for them, she might as well have staged a full on assault on the T-tower.

Slack spun around as she heard the soft sound of a roaring fire that accompanied the orbs, which continously drew closer to her body, she was met, just in time, with the vision of a blue clothed leg, which stepped before her head. Looking up Slack smiled as she saw Blizkid selflessly blocking the oncoming assault with his body, his arms held in front of him, creating a large wall of ice in the process.

The duo of flaming orbs hit the ice wall, both burning a duo of deep holes into the wall of ice before exploding, the shield stopping it from creating a massive and dangerous explosion, instead causing it to burst the ice wall with enough force to send both Blizkid and Slack flying backwards, and sending countless shards of jagged ice in every which direction, several pieces of which assaulted the three unconscious teens who all lay against the wall, cutting through their uniforms and digging into their flesh, be it slightly.

"Looks like it's just me and you" Lightlad said to Tag as he got to his feet, she nodded her head and immediately rushed the opposite direction of where Lightlad stood, their strategy: divide and conquer. It had worked in the past, and hopefully it would work again.

As Lightlad rushed through the sea of melted metal, leaping, ducking and dodging in order to get through, he raised an arm towards Nikki, charged the first of many 'light-blasts' and began to fire a them, in a series of fours, at her, though he fired them as weakly as he could, he didn't want to hurt her, well, not that badly.

Meanwhile, Tag who ran the opposite way as Lightlad, saw, much to her mixed delight and anger that Nikki had been distracted by Lightlad, upset that her diversion put Lightlad in the line of danger, but happy that she was distracted, Tag blinked her eyes shut and disappeared in a cloud of white smoke, only to reappear, mere seconds later, directly next to Nikki.

Nikki, feeling the presence of another, spun herself around in time to catch the view of Tag's fist slammingst into her own face, well, her cheek to be exact. The punch struck her with enough force to knock her back several steps, only for her backwards descent to be stopped when she slammed her back against a metal fence, which stood alongside the sidewalk.

"My turn" Nikki said with a sadistic smile as she pushed herself off of the fence and rushed towards Tag, who stood waiting defensivly for her. Kicking her left foot up fiercely, she managed to break through Tag's two handed defense and strike her directly in the soft flesh that surrounded her kidney, a move which was easily regarded as a cheap shot in anyone's book, but she didn't care about the rules, all Nikki cared about was winning and she'd do whatever it took to win.

Tag's response to the sudden pain was understandable; falling to one knee she clutched her wounded kidney tightly, in an attempt to withdraw the pain from the area. As Nikki raised a foot over her head, ready to deliver a strong legged kick to her forehead, Tag managed to overcome the pain that Nikki had inflicted and kicked off of her knelt down foot, leaping up at Nikki and wrapping her arms around her chest tightly, tackling her to the ground roughly.

Both Nikki and Tag hit the ground intesnsly, with Nikki bearing the brunt of the damage, Tag, now standing over the downed Nikki, was ready to strike again, this time a swift punch to the face, which might have sounded overly aggresive, but given the circumstances, it was more than acceptable, esspecially given the fact that she was more than convinced that Nikki would kill her if she was given the chance.

As Tag began to bend down, her left hand reaching for Nikki's hair with her left hand streched behind her back, prepparing to strike, Nikki used this time to make her own counter move, raising both her legs up into the air, she curled them, so that she appeared to be kneeling, down onto the floor before shooting them back up, her knee's slamming roughly into Tag's back, which, combined with her intense strenght, launched Tag off of from above body as well as the ground, her body shooting through the air before gracefully for a slight fifteen second interval, before finally hitting a stop, a solid green lightpost, which she launched into back first, her body slumping down along the pole, her head rested gently against her shoulder and her eyes shut in a deep sleep. Tag was unconcious, Nikki reigned victorious.

As Nikki stood over Tag's unconcious body, again raising her foot to her head, and again, ready to stomp her foot down atop of Tag's head, a move which, given her apparent heightened strength, would have seriously injured, if not killed, her, she was stopped, suddenly, by a pair of bright yellow flashes, both of which hit her in the shoulders, knocking her backwards several steps, though in no way seriously injuring her.

Peering upwards, she was met with a shocking sight, there, standing directly before her, was Lightlad, a serious and agressive look attached to his face, his right arm aimed right at her, his hand holding an intensely powerful 'Light-blast'.

"Don't make me have to do this Nikki. You know I don't want to" He said softly as he held his arm directly at her, Nikki, feeling the same intense anger that had fuelled her an hour ago begin to course through her body, she raised her own arms at Lightlad, a cocky, challenging look in her eye.

"You broke my heart. And now I'll break yours" She said, removing her arm from it's aim at Lightlad, moving it to where the unconscious Tag lay, Lightlad, knowing full well that if she was able to make the move she was threatening to make, that she would easily kill Tag, knew that drastic steps had to be taken in order to insure Tag's safety.

As Nikki prepared to fire at Tag she felt her body become lifted off of the ground she stood on, as she was, much to her delight, literally swept off her feet by Lightlad, who proceeded to bend his head down to her level and kiss her passionately, something which Nikki took great pride in, she'd won, she'd won Lightlad's heart, won it from Tag, and it felt good, real good.

Running her hands through his hair roughly, she began to kiss him back with an intense aggression, an aggresion that could match a lion's, practically biting onto his lower lip as she did. Lightlad found himself in an awkward situation now, as what had started as a simple distracting kiss in which he'd wished to achieve the safety of the person he truly cared for, had led to a feverous make out, with Nikki, disturbingly enough, acting as the 'man', being the more aggressive of the two.

As Nikki continued her heated 'make out session'-with Lightlad now bearing the mantle of the more aggressive partner, as he slowly inched her closer and closer towards the metal fence where she'd been flung by Tag earlier-Tag, who just moments prior had lain in a heavy state of unconsciousness, found herself regaining her lost conscious, slowly opening her eyes to find the horrific sight of her, now previously, best friend and most confident team member, locking lips with not only one of their worst enemies, but also the girl he'd sworn, just hours previously, not to have loved.

She felt the intense pain of betrayal hit her for a second time that day, it wasn't enough that he'd kissed her, in front of her own face before, but lying about his feelings for her, that was too much. But she wasn't going to run this time, no sir, running was the cowards way out, instead she'd face her problems, like a real hero of her calibre, was supposed to do.

Fighting back the tears that this heartbreaking betrayal brought on, she swallowed lightly and lay her head back down on the dirt, not wanting either of the two lovers to see her like this, to see her in her current state of pain. She was hurt, she truly thought that Lightlad cared for her, the flirting, playful banter, even holding the door open for her, they were all as fake as his earlier apology, and this knowledge, knowledge that he'd lied to her, twice, in one day, broke her heart.

Slowly, and seductively Nikki began to stroke Lightlad's left check, like she'd done earlier that day, as Lightlad continued to move her backwards while the two continued their public display of affection, it wasn't until Lightlad slammed her back against the metal fence, lightly, that she stopped to break off the kiss and moving her hands down to her hips, Lightlad's hands atop of hers as she did.

"I knew you still loved me" She said to him in a low, sultry and seductive tone, a tone which would have made most teens his age heartbeat double, if not triple, though this statement didn't seem to have quite the same effect on Lightlad, as he only smiled, cheekily, as he released his grip from around her hands.

"Always and forever" he said in a sarcastic tone, before giving her a mocking wink.

Nikki, un-understanding why he'd use that tone of voice regarding his feelings towards her, attempted to raise her hands to his face, as she reached a half a foot of the way to his face she felt her wrists and arms come to a violent halt, a product of being held back by a thick brace which happened to be fastened around her wrists.

Looking down she saw, much to her shock and anger, that both of her hands had been handcuffed to the fence, with a pair of lengthy handcuffs. It was a ruse, the whole thing, he'd never loved her, he'd just tricked her into thinking he had so he could cuff her, what a son of a bitch.

"I hate you!" She screamed as she tried desperately to break free from her restraints, she didn't want to go to jail, not like this at least. But it was no use, the cuffs, whatever they were made of, were tougher than she was as she found herself only losing energy as she continued attempt to escape her captor.

Lightlad flashed her a sarcastic grin, a grin that practically screamed "Gotcha", before touching a hand to his ear, pressing the 'talk' button attached to his mike with his index finger.

"Those new handcuffs of yours work like a charm Sev" he spoke into the mike.

"Glad to hear it." came Sev's response, his voice crackling through his earpiece.

As Nikki slumped over in defeat, having expended all her energy in unsuccessfully attempting to free herself from her entrapment, she began to sob, deeply and longingly, this wasn't a fake, sympathy grabbing sob, the kind she would have used had the situation been different, this was a truly, defeated, both physically, and emotionally, sob.

"I thought you loved me" she said as she stared Lightlad directly in the eye, giving him a look so full of sorrow that he had to turn away before he himself began to fill with tears.

Lightlad's face quickly dropped from his casual, sarcastic, grin to a look of pure and utter demoralization, he hadn't expected breaking her heart to make him feel this guilty, he'd actually expected it to make him feel better, but that wasn't the case as the guilt he'd felt throughout the entire day seemed to double with her one simple, yet powerful, statement.

"...I'm sorry" he said softly, unable to bring himself to stare at her, for the guilt he knew it would provoke, he simply glanced at the ground which lay in front of her, kicking the dirt at his feet with his left foot, using all his remaining strength to continue to fight back the tears building up in his eyes.

"Snappy cleanup kid" he heard the familiar voice of Seargent Scythes call out from behind him, wiping away his built up tears with his wrist, he turned around to see Scythes, Rhodes and a six man SWAT team standing before him, the SWAT team immediately rushing over to where Nikki sat sobbing quietly.

"That was some strategy, making her think you loved her than crushing her and her emotions like a freaking tin can. You didn't take lessons from my ex-wife did you?" Rhodes asked in a joking tone, though his statement didn't help to improve Lightlad's guilty conscious, not one bit.

"Come on, Rhodes, leave the kid alone. Don't you have some paperwork to fill out?" Scythes asked, Rhodes rolled his eyes before walking away from Scythes and deflecting over to where the SWAT members stood, moving Nikki, who walked along with them with her head hung low, along to the outside of the wall.

"Lightlad, I can't say I know what you're going through, with all this media attention centered on you and her, but I can tell you that I'll make each one of my men swear that they didn't see what you did today. That sound fair to you?" Scythes asked, Lightlad nodded his head as Scythes held out his hand and gripped Lightlad's with it, giving him a firm handshake.

"Now, I'm sure you're team could use a good wake up call right now" he said as he too exited the area, leaving Lightlad and his unconscious team-mates alone in the boxed in fort.

* * *

Red slowly and painfully opened his eyes and immediately felt his body become engulfed in a stinging, searing and burning pain, gritting his teeth tightly, he attempted to get to his feet, he felt like a god damn freight truck had just rammed into him, no, scratch that, make it a convoy of them. 

His attempt to get to his feet failed as he succumbed to the pain from one of the many large gash across his body, this one on his forearm, stretching from his elbow to his wrist and had taken a large portion of his flesh with it.

Falling back down onto his bottom, Red placed a hand on his wound and looked up to see a truly delightful sight, there, standing in front of him, blocking his view from the path of the sun light, stood Slack, the gleam of the sun surrounding her giving her a truly angelic appearance.

She stood with her hand held out, extended directly before her, offering it to Red, who only smirked as he reached his undamaged arm forwards.

"Well, if you're not a sight for sore eyes, I don't know what is" he said with playful sarcasm, his face holding an equally playful grin with it as he graciously accepted her hand.

Slack smiled as she helped pull him too his feet, he was heavy, much heavier than herself, but his weight wasn't a pain to bare.

As he got to his feet she gave him a sincere smile, before bending him down to her level and running a hand through his hair, in a mix of worry and affection then staring him directly in the eye.

"Are you hurt?" She asked in a soft and sincere tone of voice, a tone which carried a true sense of care and concern with it. Red shook his head and turned to her.

"Only my pride" he said with a cocky grin attached to his face, though his statement was obviously misleading as he now walked with a slight limp, stopping every second step to grin his teeth before taking the next few steps, Slack frowned, he was defiant, that was for sure, but not in a bad way and besides, taming Red was just another one of the many challenges she'd have to complete in order to prove herself as a great leader, and, to tell the truth, she really didn't mind having to.

Behind the two older teens, their team-mates were slowly pulling themselves back into the previous state of security they'd held. Blizkid, who, for the most part, had remained pretty much un injured, a slight series of cuts being the worst he'd endured, stood beside a pained looking Tag, who continuously glanced down at Blizkid worriedly and, glanced more often, at Lightlad, before turning away in sorrow.

"Seeing as how Nikki's not here anymore, I assume it's safe to say that you got the job done?" Red asked Lightlad, placing his right hand on his shoulder, attempting to snap his unadjusted shoulder back into place.

"I don't want to talk about it" Lightlad said softly, Red refrained himself from saying anymore, he'd obviously hit a soft spot, and judging from the lack of enthusiasm in the typically spastic voice of Lightlad and the distress filled looks from Tag, something serious had obviously happened to alter the two's moods to one another, and, as much as a shame as it was to see the two, who were so close previously, to look they way they did right now, he didn't want to risk ruining what little friendship he had with Lightlad.

"Fair enough" Red said as he, along with Blizkid and Slack, headed towards the car, leaving both Tag and Lightlad several steps behind, both turned slowly to glance at one another, before turning away shyly, and in Tag's case, distressfully and followed after their team-mates, who were now several dozen steps away from them.

* * *

_Jump City  
One year ago. _

_Sam smiled to himself as he casually approached the front door to Nicole's house, a door, which, might he add, had a fresh, red, trim to it. A trim resulting from the near six hours he'd taken off of his own time to help her "fix up the place", though to him this was no chore, actually, a privilege would be a better term for it, Nicole had privileged him with allowing him to paint her house._

_As he struck his knuckle against the door, in tune to the chorus of the song "More than a feeling" a song he and Nicole referred to as "their song", as cliché as it sounded, it had been the first song the two had heard on their first date and had stuck with them, as a duo, ever since._

_Awaiting the door to open Sam suddenly began to get a sneaking suspicion that something just wasn't right, usually Nicole would open the door, with a great level of enthusiasm no less, and practically leap into his arms, but this just wasn't the case._

_Twisting the doors handle, Sam slowly crept the door open, generating a slightly creeping sound with it, though this could only be heard by himself, it was still just as eerie, as the door finished opening, Sam saw a series of sights that only raised his suspicion._

_The first of the signs that something was wrong lay on the floor directly under his nose, this 'sign' taking the form of a pair of thick black worker boots, which, Sam, could have sworn he'd seen somewhere else in his life, but couldn't remember for the life of him where._

_Creeping into the house, making sure to step over the extra pair of foot attire as he did, Sam continued to creep through the small, light orange coloured hallway that led to the end of the bungalow, where he'd learned Nicole's room sat._

_As he crept through the hallway, making sure, for whatever reason he gave himself why he was doing what he was doing, not to make so much as a sound as he did, he heard what sounded like the faint sound of laughter though this was in no way the gentle laugh that Nicole gave off, instead it was a harsh, rough and, crude sounding laugh, which like the boots, Sam was more than sure he'd heard before._

_Finally, as he reached the door, he paused for a moment in order to allow his heart to take time to calm itself down, it having nearly doubled it's pace during his 'stealthy' trek through her house, finally, as it regained it's normal pace, if not a little slower, he placed a hand on the handle and slowly spun it open. _

"-you should'a seen the look that ol' Birdbrain had on his face when I showed him my pipes, it was a lot like this" a rough, loud voice, sounding similar to the one which had been laughing, spoke roughly, which was followed soon after by the soft, infectious laugh of a very, very familiar voice, Nicole's.

No longer being able to bear the suspense, Sam pushed his entire weight against the door, literally slamming it open as he did, only to see the most painfully shocking sight of his entire life. There, laying on the bed, Nicole's bed, was the twosome of Nicole, his 'assumed' sweetheart as well as the tough face of, who he now realized to be, Johnny Rancid, Nicole's abusive ex-boyfriend, his arm draped over Nicole in a very, affectionate sort of way, while Nicole's own arm wrapped under and around his back, gently groping his stomach in not only an intimate but also affectionate sort of way, both of her hands in his hair, leaving this a very loving, yet, for poor Sam, heartbreaking scene.

_Sam's mouth went agape as he tried to comprehend the scene present before him, there she was, HIS girlfriend, with HER hands wrapped around her ABUSIVE EX-boyfriend's chest, in a way which he could have sworn was reserved for only him, with HIS own arm wrapped around her in a way that he thought only he was allowed to do. A pair of devious, yet full-hearted smiles attached to each of the two cheating teen's faces, like they enjoyed this secret relationship they shared. _

Feeling a surge of not only rage, but also betrayal, soar through his body, he raised a hand and aimed it directly at Nicole, whose face had fallen from her warm, loving, smile, to a look of pure and utter shock, which he himself had held only seconds prior.

"Oh my God, Sam! This, this…isn't what it looks like" She said as she quickly tore her hands from atop of Rancid's head and brought them down to her chest, before attempting to get up out of the bed, only to be stopped when Sam pointed his arm, equipped with a 'stop' sign made out of his open palm, a stern, but still pained look on his face.

_"I stood up for you, I protected you, I loved you. And…I thought you loved me" he said in a soft whisper, using all his strength to fight back the tears that this painful betrayal was beginning to bring on. Nicole only bit her lower lip, tightly, tight enough to turn her chin a slight, pale colour of purple. _

"…I'm so sorry Sam….I-" Nicole said, attempting to excuse her actions, but Sam, now past the point where he could take anymore quickly stopped her, mid sentence with a harsh "Just shut up! I don't wanna hear it!" which shocked everyone in the room, even himself.

_All three of the house's patrons stood and in Johnny's case, lay lazily, in silence for a solid five minutes before Lightlad, having used the 'silence time' to gain a somewhat better understanding of the events before him, broke the uneasy silence., _

"_I hope you're happy" he said silently, but still scornfully, as he slowly turned towards the door and began to slowly stalk away from the the backstabbing bitch.Walking away from his past and into his unsure future. _

As he reached the door he gripped the handle tightly and slammed it, violently, behind him, the last sign of his passing aggravation, before beginning his long trek out of the house and back to his house, which lay several dozen blocks away. Normally he would have taken the bus, but, for some reason that just didn't seem appropriate to him right now, actually, a nice long walk seemed just like what the doctor ordered.

* * *

Several hours had passed by since the fight with Nikki, and aside from a few wounds, which Sev, with all his medical expertise, had taken care of, the team was pretty much back to normal, well, normal with the exception of Tag and Lightlad. Tag, having spent her time since returning home in her room and Lightlad, who was buisilly prepparing his 'Date' speech, the speech he'd use to ask Tag out, in his mind. 

Currently, Lightlad stood, once again, before the solid silver door, which led to Tag's room, though this time he carried with him a new found confidence and strength that he was sure he would use when it came to his current objective.

Knocking on the door, boldly, Lightlad patiently awaited the door to open, already conjuring up the mental image of what Tag's face might look like when he asked her the question he'd been waiting all week to ask her, and he had to say, the results he saw in his mind were spectacular.

Slowly, the silver door whished open, bringing with it the face of Tag, who looked a lot less cheerful then she had in his mind, actually, she looked, dare he say it, sad, a lot more so than he'd seen her in the past, though, to be fare, aside from earlier this day, he hadn't seen her without a smile on her face.

"What?" She asked silently, her voice no longer carrying it's usual optimistic tone, the tone that he'd grown so accustomed too over the past couple of weeks that he'd known her, instead her voice carried a somewhat deadpan and, dare he say it, hurt, tone with it.

"Well, uh…I was wondering, since everything's been cleared up between me and….uh, Nikki-" He said, speaking her name quietly as not to get her any more upset than she appeared to be "-if, maybe you'd like to….go out for a coffee sometime?" he asked, eagerly awaiting her response, which he was more than sure would be an enthusiastic Yes.

"No" she said softly as she slowly turned her head away from Lightlad, trying her hardest to avoid staring at the pained expression that her single word had sparked on Lightlad's face.

"N-no?" Lightlad asked, his voice shaking heavily as he did, he couldn't believe what his ears had just heard her say, maybe he'd hallucinated, she couldn't have said no, he'd apologized to her at least five times, wasn't that enough?

"I'm sorry Lightlad…" she said in a soft whisper as she turned her head back towards him, her eyes were moist with tears, which slowly started to fully develop before rolling down her cheek, each dropping to the solid metal floor with a soft 'flip-flop-flip' noise, which broke the uneasy silence in the hallway.

She wiped her built up tears away with the back of her wrist, bowed her head down at the floor and gently raised a hand to the door's keypad, typing the numbers gently with her fingers before retreating into the rooms dark confines, the door sliding shut as she disappeared into the darkness.

Lightlad stood in a complete state of shock, he'd been rejected, and while this sensation wasn't new to him, the feeling of rejection he now felt was, and it hurt, it hurt a lot, actually he would go so far as to say it was the single most painful experience he had ever felt in his life.

As he ran his hands through his hair, trying to regain a grip of his lost stability, which felt like it was slowly slipping away, he felt intensly dizzy and seriously lightheaded, he needed to sit down...to think about things.

As he attempted to regain his composure he heard a quiet 'creek' from behind him, removing his hands from running, feriociously, through his hair and lowering them to his waist he turned around slowly to come face-to-faces with the remainder of his team, all of whom's faces held looks of dispair, even Red's.

Swallowing down the guilt and pain he felt, he bowed his head to the ground, much like Tag had, and began the short trek back to his room, leaving the rest of his team alone in the hallway, an uncomfortable silence begining to fill the empty space.

"Yikes" Sev said uncomfortably, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had entranced the foursome. Slack, who'd stood uncomfortably along with her team as they listened in on the two's conversation, bit her lower lip tightly, she could only imagine what Lightlad must have felt like at the moment, having gone through so much in one day wasn't easy for anyone, esspecially someone like Lightlad, esspecially since she knew, or at least thought she did, how much he cared for Tag. Releasing her teeth's grip from around her lower lip, she silently broke off from the group and headed down the hall, she knew what she had to do, it was her duty, not just as leader, but also as Lightlad's friend._

* * *

_

Lightlad lay silently atop of his bed, no longer wearing his costume, which lay on the floor several feet away from him. Instead he was dressed rather casually, actually, the clothes he wore now were the same clothes that he would have worn on his and Tag's first date, a pair of blue jeans, his favourite pair, a grey T-shirt, red dress shirt and his 'lucky' pair of green "Sesame Street" socks, the same ones he'd worn on his first trip to the café where he'd first met Nicole. 

Grinning his teeth in a painful manner, he tried to push that thought, the thought of the fun times he and Tag would have shared, the thought of him being the perfect gentleman for her, pulling her chair out from under the seat and lending her a hand out of the T-car, the thought of him and her sharing a laugh over a movie they would have been watching at the theatre, the thought of himself being happy, from his mind, but, since he couldn't think of anything to replace it with, he found it to be a difficult task.

As he released his pent up, intense rage, all of which was towards himself, in the form of a heavy, ragged, groan, he heard the silent 'Whish' of his door opening. Not wanting to know who it was, he turned his head away from the open light, instead turning it towards the far side of his room, where the solid silver metal wall displayed the imprint of a female figure slowly approaching his bed.

His heart skipped a beat, she'd came back, Tag had came back, for whatever reason it was, probably to let him apoligize for, or at least explain his earlier actions, and boy-oh-boy, did he have one hell of an apology planned for her. He smiled to himself, turning his once sorrow filled frown to an overjoyed smile, before he leapt up and off of the bed, whipping his body to face Tag.

As he turned his head to face her, an apology for his earlier actions already scripted in his mind, his smile dropped, slightly, as he saw that instead of Tag, like he'd imagined to be standing there, a smile on her face and embracing arms wide open, there stood Slack, with a strong look of heavy concern, which he'd never seen in her before, attached to her face.

"Oh…it's just you" he said softly, trying to cover his obvious disappointment, Slack's smile dimmed slightly before she walked towards the bed he now sat on, plopping down a seat right beside him.

"Sorry to disappoint you" she said with a semi-smile, Lightlad smiled slightly before exhaling another deep breath of seeded rage.

"I'm sorry…I was just…well, you know" He said softly, Slack's smile increased slightly as she moved closer to Lightlad.

"I don't mean to sound offensive…but, uh, why exactly are you here?" he asked, Slack's smile increased tenfold as she turned to him.

"It may not seem like it at times, but I care about you. Just like I care about the rest of the team. So I came to check up on you and see how you were doing…and to let you know that if you want to talk, that I'm here to listen" She said warmly, Lightlad frowned slightly, he wasn't really in a 'talking mood', breaking a heart and having your's broken sure didn't make him feel like doing much else but lay in his bed and bask in the 'glow' of self-pitty, thinking about what he'd done, could have done and should have done.

"I don't really feel like talking right now" He said laying his head back down on the bed, Slack nodded her head, she was almost entirely sure he would have said that, but who could blame him, after everything he'd gone through today it was amazing that he'd even talked to her, and, while it was somewhat saddening to know that she couldn't help him, on the bright side, at least she could say she tried to help.

"Ok" she said with a soft smile as she got off the bed and began to slowly walk towards the door, walking slow enough to give Lightlad just enough time to re-think his options, as was the second part of her 'plan'. Swallowing lightly, Lightlad realized that not only had he been rude to the one person willing to talk to him, but also that talking might just do him more good than not. Gathering up the strenght to admit to himself he was wrong, he cleared his throat and called out to Slack.

"Slack…wait" he called out, Slack stopped right in front of his door, a smile attached to her face, she knew he would say that, turning around she walked back to her place on the bed and again plopped down beside him, her face carrying a gentle smile the whole time.

"So, why don't you start at the beginning?" she offered, Lightlad nodded his head, scratched his chin lightly and began to tell his long, tiresome and, in his own mind, depressing story.

"Well, I guess it all started one day, about a year ago, when I stopped off at this small Café in the middle of Jump City-" He began, starting from what he assumed to be the beginning of this seemingly random turn of events, which had led to this very moment.

* * *

Across from the brightly gleaming 'T' shaped tower that the six teens the city called heroes lived in, Hoffman sat, impatiently, in his brown leather chair, his index, middle finger and thumb tightly gripping a half smoked brown cigar. 

"Mr. Hoffman, sir?" he heard a voice call out from behind him, spiralling his chair backwards to see his associate, Dexter Hoxie standing in his now open doorway, half of his body in his view and the remainder hidden in the dark shadows behind him.

"Yes, Mr. Hoxie?" Hoffman asked as he put the Cigar to his lips.

"She's here" Hoxie said, Hoffman cracked a soft smile, turned his head to the corner of the room, which was concealed by a dark shadow, caused by the dark, moonless night which shone through his window, before turning back towards Hoxie.

"Very nice. Send her in please, Dexter" he said, Hoxie nodded his head and walked into the shadowed hallway, before re-emerging shortly after, this time followed by a second body, this one the body of a teenaged girl, who, stepping into the light, revealed herself to be Nikki.

"Ahh, Mrs. Night, please, come in, come in" Hoffman said kindly as he waved for her to come forwards, which she did gracefully.

"Mr. Hoffman sir, thank you, so much, for getting me out of jail….I owe you so much more than I can ever repay you. I'm sorry I couldn't get the Titans……I was, distracted and-" She began to say, speaking in a quick, jittery and nervous tone of voice, only to be 'hushed' down by Hoffman.

"Please, Mrs. Night, there's no need to feel remorse, none at all. You did exactly what I wanted you to do, you tested them, gave them an 'exam', and with the knowledge you're little endeavour gave me, I've devised a foolproof plan to put them to an end once and for all…but first, I'd like for you to meet some, friends of mine Mrs. Night-" Hoffman said turning from Nikki towards the shadowed part of his room, he raised a hand and ushered a 'come here' gesture with his knuckles.

Suddenly a series of bodies began to slowly emerge from the shadowed area of the room, the first was an attractive, brown haired and pale skinned teen, whose face held a sarcastic grin with it, he was dressed in an entirely black uniform which included pants, shirt and jacket, with all three articles of clothing going together to form a sort of 'uniform', which, Nikki had to admit, made him look extremely desirable.

Behind him stood a beautiful, for lack of a better word, blonde haired teenaged girl, her face holding a flirtatious smirk as she winked, seductively, at Nikki, a wink which, Nikki was embarrassed to say, made her blush, be it ever so slightly, she, like the first teen, was dressed in an all black uniform, but, unlike the first teens, her jacket was replaced by a black hoodie.

To the right of the blonde haired girl stood a significantly taller and more muscular teen, he had a small patch of hair underneath his lip as well as an aggravated grin attached to his face, his head was partially covered by a black bandana which was tightly wrapped around his forehead.

The final member of the foursome was a short, or at least shorter than the others, teen, whose long, ratty hair, which almost formed a set of natural dreadlocks, shielded his face, leaving only his body exposed, which, in turn, was covered by his own version of their 'uniform' his taking the form of a black vest, white muscle shirt and grey cargo pants, with a pair of tip-less black gloves covering his hands.

The first teen stepped forwards, held out his hand and gave Nikki a heart grabbing smile, a smile, which Nikki was almost embarrassed to say made her double up with nervousness as she slowly extended her arm to his, gripping his hand tightly, a cause of her nervousness, when she did.

"I'm Cain-" he said with a smile as he turned to face the rest of the teens, extending an arm towards them as he did "-and I think you and I would make real good friends".

Nikki's smile only widened as she continued to shake Cain's hand, she liked where this was going, she liked it a lot, continuing to smile, almost flirtatiously, at Cain, she gently released her grip from around his hand and lowered it to her waist gently.

"Please. Call me, Muse" she said with a flirtatious grin, taking that very moment to decide upon her new name, taking the first step towards abandoning her past as boring old Nikki Night and embracing her future as Muse, a future which she'd share with Cain and his 'friends', and she had to admit, she was looking foward to it, looking foward to it alot.

* * *

I really hate to leave you all with yet another cliffhanger ending, but, I can assure you, they're all leading to something, something big (or so I have planned, but things do change). But, without any further ado, it's time for the most important part of the entire chapter, that's right, another of The Captains Crazy Trivia segments.

The first bit of trivia would be that, originally, I'd intended for Nikki to really be Nicole, but decided against it and instead decided to make her seem vaguely fammiliar to Lightlad as a way of bringing back his dreaded memories, again, this trivia makes "Trivial pursuit JR." look good, but it's the best I could cook up with such a short amount of time on my hands, so, please, enjoy what little useless tidbits I present you with, I'll make sure there's more next chapter.

Well, with that little bit o' trivia said it's time for part 2. The character of Captain Rhodes, the morally pathetic, socially challenged and akward to be around SWAT captain, is modeled after actor Jason Bateman (Of Arrested Development fame)...useless trivia I know but I thought I might as well share it with you.

Aside from the above, there really isn't that much trivia to write about with this chapter, it was a pretty standard chapter with a few standing out points, but, I know as soon as I post it, I'll remeber something really important and regret having to edit it...oh well, live and learn.

Next Chapter: After a young teenaged girl is bit by a 'rabbid dog', leaving her hospitalized, the Titans are called in to investigate, but when the bite marks turn out to be from an animal non-existant in the animal kingdom, the Titans find themselves having to hunt down an animal they thought only existed in the realm of low budgeted horror movies. Meanwhile, a distressed Blizkid is tasked with watching over the hospitalized teen, a task that he doesn't seem to mind fufilling.


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